Debating the Public's Right to Know
Price of Paradise · Hawaii Public Radio · aired 1995-06-11
Guests: Milton Holt (State Senator); Desmond Byrne (President, Common Cause Hawaii)
Duration: 01:09:07

[00:00:03] Randall Roth: Good morning. This is Randy Roth, host of the Price of Paradise Radio Show. Our topic today is the public's right to know. Potentially, it's a very broad area, but we're going to keep things focused by looking closely at three specific bills that were passed by the legislature this year. Each of these bills is sitting on Governor Cayetano's desk awaiting his signature or his veto. One requires the Honolulu Advertiser and Star Bulletin to disclose their profits. Another exempts the police from a law requiring disclosure of disciplinary actions, and the third authorizes the state to sell electronic information at a profit.

[00:00:40] Randall Roth: This last bill was the subject of two articles in this morning's advertiser. The authors of those articles, Milton Holt and Desmond Burn are with me in the studio this morning. Milton Holt served one term in the State House of Representatives in 1979 and 80 and has been a member of the State Senate since then. During that time, he's held many positions, including Chairman of the Committees on Higher Education, Tourism and Recreation, Planning, Land, Water Use Management, Executive Appointments and Consumer Protection. Milton has a BA in Government from Harvard and has been employed by Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate since 1987. Desmond Burn is the President of Common Cause Hawaii and owner of Honolulu Information Services.

[00:01:24] Randall Roth: He's an accountant by training and a government watchdog by avocation. He also has an MBA from the University of Hawaii. Gentlemen, good morning.

[00:01:33] Milton Holt: Good morning.

[00:01:34] Desmond Byrne: Good morning, Randy.

[00:01:35] Randall Roth: The topic is very, very broad. The public's right to know, you know, sometimes the public clearly has a right to know and then other times there are other issues out there that that make it a little bit less certain that the public should should have information provided to it. The first of these three bills that we're going to be talking about is sometimes called the SHOPO bill, SHOPO being the name of the police officers union that had lobbied hard for the the passing of the bill. As I understand it, Desmond, there is a law right now that says government employees who are disciplined, that that information has to be made public.

[00:02:15] Randall Roth: There's a lawsuit going on involving that, but generally speaking, the law says it has to be disclosed to the public. But this year in the legislature, there was a bill. Again, some people call it the SHOPO bill, some people call it the police disclosure bill that changes that. If the governor signs this bill and indications are that that he will, then anything short of dismissal, as I understand it, can be kept private so that the public won't have access to that information. Have I correctly summarized the the situation as you understand it?

[00:02:51] Desmond Byrne: Yes, you have.

[00:02:52] Randall Roth: Okay. What's your what's your position?

[00:02:55] Desmond Byrne: I believe that information about police discipline of those probable calls and it's a serious offense. There are A, B, C, D offenses and A and B are serious ones. Then if there's probable cause, that should be disclosed. We're not interested by by where my common calls had in trivial stuff, which was in the SHOPO videotape, which was circulated widely.

[00:03:23] Randall Roth: Okay, and I want to hear a little bit more about that, what what all went on in the the lobbying for this particular bill. Milton, I I think you were in favor of the bill?

[00:03:33] Milton Holt: Yes, I was.

[00:03:34] Randall Roth: Could you tell us why? Why you think that's a good piece of legislation?

[00:03:38] Milton Holt: Well, you have to realize that Hawaii is a special place, and this is a special bill, bill dealing with a special situation. Our police officers here cannot go across state lines like you can in the Mainland. When you have complaints that are unwarranted, that are malicious, and you get police get complaints, different from any other public worker. They get from families and friends of people who are arrested. Ordinary public workers don't get those kind of complaints.

[00:04:11] Randall Roth: So, different in terms of the number of complaints that are filed?

[00:04:13] Milton Holt: The type of the type of complaints, the file. And they have to deal with these public kind of complaints in a public setting. And if these complaints are made and not validated in courts, these police officers are publicly exposed and their families are exposed unnecessarily.

[00:04:37] Randall Roth: Desmond, what are your thoughts on that?

[00:04:39] Desmond Byrne: Well, the police have a special situation really. They carry guns, they can arrest people, and public confidence is absolutely essential. So their disciplinary matters for more serious things to screen out this kind of stuff Milton has been talking about, so that there's probable cause and serious should be disclosed. This accounts for very, very few people relatively in the police force, but we got to know about those, because the police have a long track record of not even making disclosing their own rules and regulations, being very secretive, looking after their own, and they've not been good at putting out information in the public domain.

[00:05:20] Randall Roth: Milton, what about this, you know, the the public confidence is, as Desmond puts it, or in a couple of the editorials from the advertiser and the star bulletin, they've used the expression secret police, and that's obviously pejorative term. Are you worried that that the citizenry will not have as much confidence in the police if this is kept secret?

[00:05:41] Milton Holt: I'm not very concerned about that, because the police are held to a higher standard than the most people understand. They have a code of conduct which requires them to use preponderance of evidence, which is a higher standard than the reasonable doubt that the courts use today.

[00:05:57] Randall Roth: I see, before they're found guilty of whatever misconduct they've been accused of.

[00:06:02] Milton Holt: They have a higher standard right now existing in their code of conduct that people don't really know exists today, so they they are held to this standard. And in those serious cases that we're talking about, if they're criminal, the police are handled just like any other ordinary citizen.

[00:06:18] Randall Roth: Okay, and so when other government worker unions, like the HGEA, for example, in the last few weeks, they've stepped forward and said, well, G, if if the police get this exemption, our people should get this exemption as well. You would say no because it's a completely different situation?

[00:06:38] Milton Holt: Well, we'd have to weigh the merits and demerits of the bill. The bill is not before us. I know that they're dealing with the labor relations board right now. The governor said, no, I think publicly already. We'll take that when the bill comes before us. But right now we're saying that the police do have a special situation.

[00:06:58] Randall Roth: Okay. Well, I want to get the input from a couple of other people and then return to to Milton and Desmond. We have on the line, uh, Jerry Kato, who is a professor at the University of Hawaii and the faculty advisor to the UH chapter of the Society Professional Journalists, and they've been involved in this SHOPO issue for some time. We're going to see what Jerry has to say and then Su'eanne Gregory, who's the staff attorney for SHOPO. We'll get her thoughts. But first on line six, we have Jerry Kato. Good morning, Jerry.

[00:07:28] Jerry Kato: Uh, good morning, Randy.

[00:07:30] Randall Roth: Uh, have you been listening to Milton and Desmond talk about the SHOPO bill?

[00:07:33] Jerry Kato: Yes.

[00:07:34] Randall Roth: Uh, what are your thoughts?

[00:07:36] Jerry Kato: Well, I, um, obviously SPJ feels that the bill now pending before the governor should be vetoed. I think it's a bad bill. You know, if there's any overriding theme to why SPJ is involved in this case is that that theme is openness. And we believe that openness about the police and what they do are are useful in improving police management and police practices. And that's why we're we're we're promoting this idea that the information should be available to the public. The public's right to know.

[00:08:07] Randall Roth: Is it that simple that we want to promote openness, or is there there's some other argument that Desmond hasn't already articulated, that makes you believe that this is a bad bill?

[00:08:18] Jerry Kato: Well, I I do believe that, you know, in a democracy that the people should the people should feel that they can get information about police officers or indeed any other public official or public workers without having to go through all the kinds of hurdles that SHOPO has faced. Indeed, lawsuits, I might remind people that early on in this case, the police department told SHOPO, well sure, you know, we'll give you the names. You give us $20,000. They're going to charge us $20,000 for these for for this public information. That's ridiculous.

[00:08:53] Randall Roth: Okay. Well, we're going to be talking about uh, uh government charging for information uh, a little bit later, but that's that's interesting and um, and just one last thing. As I understand it, if the governor signs this piece of legislation, it will pretty much make moot the litigation that you have with SHOPO right now.

[00:09:14] Milton Holt: Well, not necessarily. I think even if the governor signs this piece of legislation, there is still the question about the period between '88 and and now.

[00:09:23] Randall Roth: But for the future, anyway, uh, there wouldn't be some argument that the bill was unconstitutional or anything like that.

[00:09:29] Milton Holt: Well, I I will I I reserve that for later and we'll see what the governor does.

[00:09:35] Randall Roth: Very prudent. Thank you, Jerry. We appreciate your thoughts.

[00:09:38] Jerry Kato: Okay.

[00:09:38] Randall Roth: Uh, Su'eanne Gregory online four. You've been listening to all of this, I think.

[00:09:43] Su'eanne Gregory: Yes, I have. Good morning, Randy.

[00:09:44] Randall Roth: Good morning. Uh, you're the staff attorney for SHOPO and SHOPO stands for the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers. Uh, what are your thoughts based on everything that you've heard?

[00:09:56] Su'eanne Gregory: Well, a couple points that I would just like to make, Senator Holt is is correct, Hawaii is a special place, and along with that comes and this is our main concern as a union, is the human values issue. And I think that hasn't been talked about this morning in terms of the harm that's going to cause the families to have police officers' names exposed in the paper. There was a testimony before the legislature from families where unsubstantiated allegations against police officers caused devastating harm to the families and that's one of our main concerns as a union is to protect our families also.

[00:10:34] Randall Roth: Su'eanne, does this uh, without this bill, do allegations have to be disclosed or or just findings of misconduct?

[00:10:44] Su'eanne Gregory: It would be findings of misconduct, but there's no control over what would actually be printed about the incident itself. So that's one of our concerns.

[00:10:52] Randall Roth: Okay. Stay on the line. I want to get Desmond Burn's reaction to what you've said and then um, any more comments that you might want to make. Desmond?

[00:10:59] Desmond Byrne: Well, as I said before, Randy, the video circulated by SHOPO was totally misleading. It was on C&D or trivial offenses and the family reaction. And we're not interested in that. I don't think the public is interested in smaller disciplinary. It's major disciplinary things of prisoners getting beaten up or false reports or something like that and serious things and if people are going to go into the police, then they expect a certain amount of scrutiny there, and that's what they're getting and SHOPO I think is very short-sighted. It might win this battle, but it's going to lose the war of public confidence.

[00:11:33] Randall Roth: Okay. Su'eanne, do you want to respond to that, or add anything else to uh, the the topic in general?

[00:11:38] Su'eanne Gregory: Why I can respond to that when when things are mentioned such as prisoner beatings, those types of cases are highly scrutinized and they go from an internal division within the police department to the prosecutors and the prosecutor's office has responded saying that police officer cases are held to even higher scrutiny for screening and most of those cases proceed to prosecution if there's merit. So, I think when we talk about serious cases, criminal charges and even misdemeanor charges, will become public.

[00:12:10] Randall Roth: Okay. Su'eanne, we really appreciate you being available to us and and sharing your thoughts.

[00:12:15] Su'eanne Gregory: Thank you for the opportunity, Randy.

[00:12:16] Randall Roth: Okay. Goodbye. Well, gentlemen, you've you've listened to Jerry Kato and Su'eanne Gregory's thoughts. Um, Milton, do you have any any response to anything that they've been saying?

[00:12:26] Milton Holt: No, I think regarding the uh, I don't think the I wasn't sure what Jerry was talking about, the $20,000 charge that the police requested. I thought Su'eanne might have cleared that up. But maybe we'll get into that when we get into the other bill. Um, regarding substantiated unsubstantiated allegations, I think that Su'eanne is correct in a sense that it would um, cause uh, sincere harm to families if these things are exposed.

[00:12:52] Randall Roth: I want to remind listeners that this is the Price of Paradise Radio Show. We call it the Pop Radio Show. Our topic today is the public's right to know. And we've got three specific bills that were passed in this most recent legislative session that we're talking about. The first one has to do with the disclosure of police misconduct, we call it the police disclosure bill. The second one is called the newspaper disclosure bill and we're going to talk a bit more about it in just a moment. And then the third is what's called the fees for information bill. All of these have to do with the the public's right to know.

[00:13:25] Randall Roth: Our guests in the studio are Milton Holt, he has been in the State Senate for the last 14 years and is an administrative officer at Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate. Also Desmond Burn, who is the President of Common Cause Hawaii and the owner of Honolulu Information Services. If you'd like to ask a question or make a brief comment, all you have to do is call us at 955-8821. And as always, neighbor islanders are invited to call collect. The number again is 955-8821. Well, let's shift gears just a bit and talk about this uh, newspaper disclosure bill. Unlike the police disclosure bill which exempts a group from having to disclose something, the newspaper disclosure bill requires disclosure.

[00:14:10] Randall Roth: And as I understand it, Milton, basically what it says is that the Honolulu Advertiser and Star Bulletin have to make their tax returns available to the State Attorney General so that she can determine whether or not they're in good financial shape. The reason that's relevant is that this uh, exemption they have from antitrust legislation was granted in the first place on the theory that it was necessary in order to to keep both newspapers healthy. Um, is that a correct summary of of the bill?

[00:14:42] Milton Holt: Yes, it is. Um, what do you think about it? Well, the the two newspapers which the bill uh deals with are the only uh, business actually in Hawaii that makes we, as we know uh, more up to a hundred million dollars in profit per year.

[00:14:58] Randall Roth: Is that is that rumor or do we have No, we had uh, we had information uh, from the newspapers themselves a couple of years ago when the first bills were introduced that they were making at least 65 million and they'll be making over 100 million in the the next 10 years.

[00:15:13] Milton Holt: A profit uh, um, they're a special situation, they're unregulated, they're tax exempt. Uh, they had this antitrust exemption, and they influence public opinion on daily basis. Um, no other business in Hawaii is given a special treatment and privilege.

[00:15:29] Randall Roth: Now, several commentators have suggested that that this is really retaliation, that people in the um, the state legislature are doing this because they don't like some of the things that the newspapers have have printed. What's your reaction to that?

[00:15:43] Milton Holt: Uh, that's not true. I think uh, when the um, the papers were given the exemption, they might have had a situation where there was a failing company. Um, they just got the uh, this exemption renewed recently. Um, but there is no indication that any one of the newspapers is failing. In fact, they're making a lot of money. And the only thing we're trying to do is make sure that uh, they are um, afforded these this special privilege for a special reason, and that reason was because of their failing company. And we have not been able to get the information um, that will uh, support uh, the continuance of this exemption.

[00:16:19] Randall Roth: Okay. Desmond, I don't even know what your position is on the bill because you uh are well-known critic of of the media in general. Uh, and yet I've I've got a feeling that uh, that you don't agree with this bill uh, in that it requires a private company to make their finances public.

[00:16:40] Desmond Byrne: Come on, confess up. I have a love-hate relationship with the media, and I'm I'm told it's it's a two-way relationship but go Right, right, right. Um, they're the only media we have, and much as one would criticize them, don't like to see them intimidated any, in any way.

[00:16:58] Randall Roth: Do you feel that this was an attempt to intimidate? Well, there've been previous resolutions and you could see from the testimony that a lot of legislators had a lot of anecdotal material that of being treated unfairly by the press, which unfortunately they'd not gone to the Honolulu community media council or expressed directly in in letters. I mean there are some letters from legislators correcting things.

[00:17:19] Desmond Byrne: But I think there is a a dislike of the media in there which is unfortunate in a way because I don't think the legislature puts them over themselves over very well and explains themselves uh to the media. Consequently, the media does distort some things. I mean I wonder some days whether the legislature's in session sometimes when I read the newspaper.

[00:17:39] Randall Roth: Let me get Milton's reaction to to that, and then I want to come back and let you finish your your thoughts.

[00:17:43] Milton Holt: Yeah, I think people have to keep in mind that this is not just something that just came off the uh, off the, off the wall. Um, Frank Fasi has been after the newspaper for how many years on this issue? Um, it's not a new issue. It's been around for a while regarding the antitrust exemption that the papers have, and uh, this is just uh, um the legislature acting uh, in its own way.

[00:18:06] Desmond Byrne: To continue on this, I'm not sure why the legislators reacted because the joint operating agreement is in fact uh, just about out of action. The Gnett owns the advertiser. They own 100% of the Hawaii Newspaper Agency and they under contract provide services to the Star Bulletin. It's not a 10% 90% or any kind of percentage relationship there. The Star Bulletin is provided services. It's not a joint operating agreement anymore. And furthermore, the details have to go to the Attorney General here who will send them on, they will be public information, send them on to the Attorney General in in Washington, DC because it's a federal matter.

[00:18:48] Desmond Byrne: And the feds, when they set up the newspaper preservation Act, didn't require anything further to be done about monitoring it. It goes on for eternity. And the Attorney General in Washington is going to say, why are you sending me bring me this material. It's not required. What am I going to do with it? Um it's it's not it's not valid. It's not a joint operating agreement really in in effect anymore.

[00:19:09] Milton Holt: But but what if um the tax return show that they've been making not only large profits, but larger than what Milton was describing. Uh what does that mean?

[00:19:20] Desmond Byrne: I mean, does that mean that something's wrong with the relationship that exists? Oh, I think there's a lot wrong. Yeah. I mean 80% of their revenues come from advertising, and although there's plenty of competition from mid-week and a whole host of people, either they're charging too much for the advertising, and I hope that disclosure, I mean, as benefit from it, may encourage competition there.

[00:19:43] Milton Holt: Is that a nice way of saying they may be intimidated into changing something? Well, I like disclosure basically. I mean, of any I wondered where you were on this, yeah. Uh a private corporations, um but I have the opposite thing. I don't like seeing the the press, which is a a watchdog and surrogate for the public to be intimidated. But the more information that's out there, hopefully it encourages competition and for advertising and anything else, and they're not enough news channels in this place at all. Okay. Um Milton.

[00:20:12] Milton Holt: Just just one point on that then and then just so people understand out there that uh this is just merely providing income tax information to the attorney general. Oh there were previous uh bills introduced which required mandatory disclosure, uh and even voluntary disclosure of uh financial uh um statements. So this is just something that's uh they have to do to provide to Uncle Sam that they have to provide here at the state level. Okay.

[00:20:36] Milton Holt: We have a caller on the line. Jerry. This is Jerry. Jerry, again, all right. We were hoping you'd call back. I I it just occurs to me. I just want to clarify one thing here. There's been a lot of discussion about people who are unsubstantiated allegations and all all of that against police officers. I would like to remind people that the public would get the information only after there has been uh the officers have gone through an administrative process and have uh exhausted their administrative process. Indeed, uh there there's a 30-day wait period before you can even get the information. Uh so that there has been a process in place to review and uh review the allegations whatever they may be. Okay. So it is not unsubstantiated. There is some substantiation to it in this review and uh I I should emphasize that some of these incidents are not trivial as I think would like to characterize them. They are some very serious activities going on here. Um knows it and we know it too. And I think that, you know, is engaging in this kind of semantic emotionalism about harm to families, but has been unwilling or unable to provide substantive evidence of this. Okay.

[00:21:56] Milton Holt: Our our our bottom line, anyway. Our bottom line is that when a public official or officer engages in misconduct or impropriety, there is a vital public interest in full disclosure of all information relevant about that misuse of authority. Okay. And and while we're on the topic of disclosure, uh Milton Holt has a question to ask you, I think about $20,000 or whatever Milton, what what's the question? Well, I wasn't sure. Yeah, I mean he got that he made a statement about uh being requested to put up $20,000 to get information from the police. Um I was hoping Anne would be able to address that, but uh well let me explain that, the $20,000 Can you do it very quickly and then we have to move on? Sure sure. Okay. Early on when we had asked for this information back in uh oh, 1993, the fall of 1993, uh the police's response to uh our request was that, well, sure, we'll give you the information, uh it'll cost you $20,000 to obtain it.

[00:22:56] Milton Holt: I guess on the theory that that's uh how much their time was worth in putting the information together and Okay. Okay. Well, we're going to we're going to zero in on that issue as a as a third issue in a few minutes. Thank you, Jerry, we appreciate your call. We've got another caller, Tom from IA. Good morning, Tom.

[00:23:13] Tom: Good morning. I just like to say, um shame, uh can really serve as a deterrent, shame from disclosure to the police, uh as it does to the public. In Seattle, the gay community is being harassed by some of the police, and the gay community set up a hotline that track complaints by time, date, police badge number, etc., which were logged into a computer. After an officer was caught shoplifting at one of the department stores that they served as a security guard on off-time, did it come out that he was the major harasser of the community. He was fired on the spot, and I think it's useful that shame can serve as a deterrent for the police as well as the public. Okay, thank you. Um thank you, Tom. Um Milton, and I What's your response to to the argument that we need disclosure of uh police misconduct in order to have an effective deterrent to that kind of activity? Well, I think, like I said earlier, we have enough um, the police have enough um in their code of conduct uh in existence today that uh deters a lot of uh these kinds of activities from occurring. We, obviously, you know, there's going to be exceptions to the case to the rule and whatever, and um, I don't believe the disclosure is a is is is a strong enough deterrent. I mean I think they they have they have high standards in their code of conduct which would deter them from engaging in such activities. Okay. This is the Pop Radio Show. We're talking about the public's right to know, and we've already gone through in some detail the so-called Police Disclosure bill and also the Newspaper Disclosure bill. So we're going to spend a few minutes talking about the third piece of legislation, and that is Fees for Information Bill. If you haven't seen this morning's advertiser, uh the uh focus section, I think it's page B3, if I'm not mistaken, has two uh very well written articles, pro and con on whether or not government should be uh charging more than its costs in um in selling information to the public. And if I could ask our guest to briefly sum up what the different sides of this issue are, and then we'll have all three of these pieces of legislation completely out on the table, Desmond?

[00:25:31] Desmond Byrne: Right. There's already a law on the books, Chapter 92, that information should be sold at the cost of reproduction. And that that's fine. And that's what I believe it should be done, the cost of reproduction. Now, there was a bill in the legislature to to let all state agencies charge more than the cost of reproduction, and even commercial value. And that bill defeated, but another bill did pass allowing the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs or DCCA to charge for information uh above the cost of reproduction. And that will have um it's a prototype bill in some ways, and it's a step I believe in the wrong direction.

[00:26:15] Milton Holt: Okay, so it basically would allow the government to charge whatever the market would bear for information generated by a government agency. Yes, but I mean how can they determine what the market value is? Okay. Milton Holt?

[00:26:28] Milton Holt: Um yes, Desmond's right. That's what the bill um does um do. Um but the uh as as indicated in the article this morning, our primary focus was on the commercial user, uh who uses this information for profit. Um Let me ask Desmond because I thought that was a good point you made that that individuals who call in and seeking an individual piece of information, there isn't a charge or it isn't beyond the cost of reproduction. This is just those commercial outfits that want the whole database. Desmond, what what's your response to that? Agreed that for individual users, there's often a computer terminal on a counter or through FYI the the gateway electronic gateway that can use this. Um I don't see a clear distinction between the public non-profit organizations and commercial users because it's the public which uses it in the end and pays for it in the end and the information distribution. So there is not a clear dividing line and the Feds have decided that it doesn't matter who requests the information or what the end use is. It's a common policy. Yeah, in my understanding correctly, you're saying that the big companies will pass that charge on to the little people out there. So, one way or another, individuals end up paying Right. Right. In my business, if I get charged by anybody, government agencies, often a lawyer asks me to do something, I pass it on to the lawyer and the lawyer passes it on to the end user. The it all gets passed along. It isn't as though business is absorbing this, it involves the cost of living here, it's reflected, it's part of the cost of living here. Okay. Milton?

[00:28:05] Milton Holt: Yeah. Um as I indicated in the article, this uh to the to the Senate, anyway, and the legislature as a whole, was was a housekeeping amendment that we added in there. Um primarily, um the reason for that was to to make sure that the DCCA who um is no longer state funded, general funded, um all they um have to to run their operations is on their user fees that they collect. This just allows them to um we made that policy change in 1993. And DCCA is the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs. Right. Correct. And this division um would not uh make any sense for them to charge excessively high fees, otherwise, they would not get any business, Mhm. and um they would not be able to pay for their their personnel. So it's in their best interest to charge what we might call a reasonable fee. Correct. Okay. Desmond?

[00:28:55] Desmond Byrne: Well, first of all, as Milton knows, there was no uh public meeting on this, no public input. There was um no hearing in the legislature. This was considered on rule making by the DCCA in December, November, but it was it it was worded differently there. There was no public meeting at the legislature. Secondly, let's let's let Milton respond to that. Yeah. Okay. Keep Keep your thought, Milton. Yes, Desmond. Um I disagree. There was a public hearing on this particular bill, House Bill 1927. Uh during the discussion on the bill, um the division head, Russell Yamashida was asked if there's any other issues uh before the division that he wanted to deal with. This was one of the issues that was brought up in the hearing. Uh the question was asked before the committee in in a public setting, in a public hearing, um regarding this this issue and whether they wanted to consider an amendment that would provide that would allow the the division to to charge fees. Um and the amendment was put into a bill and uh we passed it over to the House where it sat for three or four weeks. And it was a totally public in our committee report and all. Okay. How do we square what what each of you are saying, Desmond? Well, when you go along to a public hearing, this was a a fairly routine, I think, housekeeping bill. And housekeeping just means Right. Right. just my minor things to clean things up. So you look at the bill and you say, should I be at that hearing and you look at it and say, well, no, it's a it isn't relevant to what I'm interested in. And then if somebody adds something, this was a major thing added on to a routine housekeeping bill. Well, let me ask Milton, is is that the difference, that Desmond considers this a big big thing, and you consider it housekeeping. Housekeeping. Yeah. Okay. All it is is give authorization to uh charge fees. We do that all the time in in a lot of other instances. Desmond, why is it such a big deal? Because it overrides chapter 92, uh which is the uh uh which is the law allowing cost of reproduction, which is across the board for all state agencies, and it countermands that, it overrides that. It's not a routine bill, and you've got to have public input to these things, because there would have been some public input, and it might it would have changed the wording, which is extremely vague and will give work for attorneys in the AG's department for some time.

[00:34:31] Milton Holt: And as far as public having um input on this, um Chapter 91 still applies to anything that happens here regarding any change in fees. So, all we did was give them authorization. They still have to go out to public hearings, have public input that Desmond just spoke about before they change any fees. They can't set the fee schedule without going public. Okay, Desmond, one more remark, and then we're going to take a call. Well, I think, you know, in the interest of time, we we added that one, we the public didn't consider that there be, but the more important thing is that DCCA or any agency charges filing fees to keep your user fees to keep that part of the agency self-sufficient, and that's a good thing. So DCCA gets most of its fees from filing fees to do its job properly. These copying fees are absolutely incidental uh to the whole operation. Okay. Well, we have on the line uh Ken Schmidt, who um uh and and Ken, are you there? Ken, are you there on line three? Yes, hello, Randy. Hi, as I understand it, you are a Geographic Information System coordinator for the City and County of Honolulu. That's correct. And as such, you have some hands-on experience with this issue? Yes. Uh what we're doing at the city, we've implemented a a fee structure that allows us to just to distribute our GIS data. And what is GIS data? Uh it uh basically computer map information, but it goes beyond just computer graphics, it actually has uh attribute information tied to the graphics such as for like sewer sewer lines, you would be able to determine the size of the pipe, uh the type of pipe is there, when it may have been installed, uh for parcel information, when or who the owner of that that parcel is, what the value of the land is, when a when a uh structure was built on that land. So it's it's more than just a a purely record database that is also a uh it's a map database, so to speak. Okay. And and what's been your experience with this Fees for Information issue? Well, I I think it's important that the uh agencies have the ability to generate a revenue uh source that uh to assist in the long-term maintenance and development of these programs. The increasing cost of implementing these technologies, especially on a wide spread basis throughout an in entire enterprise, has become very costly. And our ability to fund these type of programs is the is become limited because of the budget uh restrictions we've run into. So the people that are using this information that have been able to acquire it for not just commercial purposes, but just for in-house service purposes, have been able to help supplement our revenue requirements to assist in maintaining and building the database for long for the long-term and also for providing us better opportunities to provide this information to the public and improve our public services. Uh uh Okay. Let's let's get Desmond Burns' reaction to that, Desmond? Um, firstly, I agree. Geographical Information Systems, GIS, is a very big and costly system. And I think it's in our interest, the public interest, that one government agency developed this and make it easily available to other levels of government, state and county as a

[00:38:00] Milton Holt: control resource. The public is kind of incidental in this. If they do a good job providing government agencies and the whole of government with this kind of system, it it will pay for itself enormously in in more efficiency and better planning.

[00:38:15] Unknown: The public is incidental to fees, so it should be for profit or nonprofit kind of cost of reproduction again, and not trying to make a whole business out of it. I don't, on the scale of things, I think it's small potatoes.

[00:38:29] Randall Roth: In a way, it it sounds to me like that's part of this issue is is whether government should be running this like a a business, a profit center if you will, or simply trying to uh cover its costs through various charges. Is is that part of it?

[00:38:46] Milton Holt: Right. I I think they should focus on doing a superior job with it for government, because that's the main reason why they buy it and set it up and do everything. And if they do a good job, then the public benefits generally, and if it wants to acquire the information, it makes sure that it's not all duplicated and everybody reinvents the wheel in a very small marketplace called Hawaii. Our costs are bad enough as they are.

[00:39:10] Randall Roth: Okay. Milton Holt, any thoughts on this issue?

[00:39:12] Milton Holt: Yeah. Um, essentially all this amendment does is allow um government to be entrepreneurial, uh to to manage and utilize its its resources more efficiently and effectively.

[00:39:24] Randall Roth: Okay. Ken, we really appreciate your input on this. Sure, Andy. And I appreciate your time.

[00:39:30] Randall Roth: Okay. You're listening to the Pop Radio show. Our topic today is the public's right to know. We're talking about three specific bills that were passed in the legislature this year, all three of which are awaiting uh Governor Cayetano's signature or veto. Our guests in the studio are Milton Holt, who is a state senator, and administrative officer for Kamehameha schools, Bishop Estate, and Desmond Byrne, the president of Common Cause Hawaii and owner of Honolulu Information Services. If you'd like to ask a question or make a brief comment, just call us at 955-8821. Well, Andrew from Honolulu, you've been waiting patiently. Good morning.

[00:40:08] Andrew: Good morning. How are you? I'm listening to your show. Um, just a couple comments here on the what you've been talking about with the police disclosure and getting down to uh what I originally called because of the um paying for information. And I think that that's not right to have to pay for it because we've already paid for it.

[00:40:28] Randall Roth: with taxes. Yeah, we've already paid for it, and uh Mr. Holt's question about uh the government wants to be entrepreneurial, right? This He put that in his article. I'm going to be entrepreneurial too. I'm going to go out and charge somebody taxes, okay? I'm going to charge my neighbor a tax for using my my walkway. Now I can't do that. Now, I think we're all missing the point. This this whole conversation is going to be moot in about a year or two when everyone takes it upon themselves to disclose what they want on the internet, which is becoming more and more available to everyone, especially in Hawaii, I think we're more progressive than a lot of other states in this.

[00:41:09] Randall Roth: Okay. Andrew, let me let me see what Milton Holt has to say about your suggestion that people are paying twice for this.

[00:41:15] Milton Holt: Um, no, they're not paying twice. Like we said earlier, the the vision is not funded by taxpayers' money. Those moneys are they don't really have any general fund budget, so to speak.

[00:41:25] Unknown: Are are these are these city employees that are giving this information out?

[00:41:28] Milton Holt: I'm talking about the state amendment that the law. This amendment applies to the DCCA, which is the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs. Business registration.

[00:41:37] Unknown: But that's on their paycheck to city and county paycheck, right? No, we're talking about a state issue. Let let's see what Desmond Byrne has to say on this one.

[00:41:49] Desmond Byrne: This this is a state matter at the moment, but it will start to apply to the city as well and to all things. The question of whether you paid twice, people have paid for the information, and if you're going to charge the cost of reproduction or the out of pocket cost to to reproduce a magnetic tape or a photocopy, that's what I believe should happen. And once you start getting into other areas above that level or commercial value, you get into a real can of worms. And if you stand back and say, let's have some vision here that we want government information to feed into Hawaii at the lowest possible cost and distribution, then to make Hawaii efficient and effective and uh flourish here.

[00:42:38] Milton Holt: Yeah, let me just make one point very clear that the the focus of this bill is not to get at the uh the individual or the the the the the the person off the street, it's uh directed at commercial users, those who want and expect to get a tape comprising of 90,000 records that they want this that they want the state to reproduce.

[00:43:00] Unknown: These are like uh credit agencies or Prentice Hall, big companies.

[00:43:05] Milton Holt: Big companies, uh companies that use it for their own um for profit purposes.

[00:43:10] Randall Roth: So only they'll be charged.

[00:43:12] Milton Holt: Uh, the department would uh go out, have public hearings and determine uh what that fee schedule should be uh for everyone.

[00:43:20] Randall Roth: Oh, for these particular commercial users.

[00:43:22] Unknown: So then the commercial users will be charged, not the people that want to Correct. Oh okay. I see.

[00:43:28] Randall Roth: Thank you, Andrew. We appreciate your call. Well, wait. One more point here.

[00:43:31] Unknown: Make it quick. Okay. I will. This whole thing about disclosure on the internet, you haven't touched on any of those things. People will disclose on their own Well, Andrew, I discrepancies. I tell you what. I think that's going to This this topic is is so Well, it's it's so broad that we're going to try to stick to these three bills so that we can keep some focus to it. But thank you very much.

[00:43:55] Randall Roth: Thanks. Uh we've got uh Tom from IE. I think you called once before, Tom.

[00:43:59] Tom: Yes, I I appreciate it extra quick. to clear up on on that issue. You know, by keeping information about the police uh private where the public hasn't gotten a chance to get it, there's a chance for the police to abuse their privileges. And as I said in in Seattle, it happened. You also saw it with Rodney King, you had the police officers that were were definitely uh criminal in their actions. It was only when the the gay community was able to show a pattern existed by getting that printout and taking it to the mayor by all these different complaints coming in time after time after time with their discipline

[00:44:36] Randall Roth: Let's let's get Milton Holt's reaction to that.

[00:44:39] Milton Holt: Yeah, like I said in the early my initial statements, Hawaii is a special place. Uh, we do have a police commission. I'm not so sure Seattle has a police commission. Um and uh they oversight, they have oversight over the police department and the police chief and their activities.

[00:44:52] Randall Roth: So when we say this information isn't going to be disclosed to the public, it's going to continue to be disclosed to the police commission. Correct. Correct. Why does the public still feel very uh nervous about an incestuous relationship between the police commission and the uh and the police themselves? I think if if nothing is done Tom, you've made your point very well, and I've got some other people who've been waiting. Thank you very much for calling in.

[00:45:15] Randall Roth: Uh Rusty from Maui, good morning, Rusty. Hey, good morning. Um Yeah, this thing about the police, um the the citizen doesn't have the right to have a wrongful arrest or um if he's being harassed by the police, this can immediately go into the the newspaper, blotter, etc. It's immediately public information. Um I don't get why the police get special protection there. The the other part of this is police reps have been ruined by false allegations. That doesn't make that doesn't wash. Um either there was everybody suspected it's about this guy all along, they realized it was probably true, but it wasn't provable. I do I mean, a reputation cannot be ruined by a false allegation. Um Okay. Yeah. Rusty, I appreciate your call.

[00:46:08] Randall Roth: Thanks. Um, we have uh Suanne Gregory has called back. She's the staff attorney for SHOPO, the police Union. Suanne, are you there? Yes, I am. Thanks, Randy. I just did want to comment on a on a few more things topics that have come up this morning. Uh, first, I can address the $20,000 fee that was allegedly uh charged for the information. What I'm not sure about is what was requested. I believe that initial request was for a search of a number of years, 20 years of records. And so I think that's um how that came about for the fee that was used that um the Chief had initially put that out there. Um and I'm not sure and it's hasn't been raised exactly what information was requested, but I believe it was for a lengthy period of time. The other thing that has not come up this morning is that the only thing that is being protected under this bill is the name of the officers. Statistics are available and currently available and the Chief has made those available without costs, as to the types of incidents that have occurred, the number of day suspensions that have been given out. And the Chiefs have all testified in hearings that as the chief disciplinarian for the department, if you are dissatisfied with officers not receiving discipline, you can approach the police commissions, they have oversight over the police chiefs in all four counties, and they are the ones to review whether discipline is being meted out.

[00:47:39] Randall Roth: Okay. Thank you Suanne, we appreciate that. Thanks, Randy. We have uh Dick Miller on the line. Dick is a professor at the University of Hawaii Law School. Dick, good morning. Good morning, Randy. Good morning uh Milton and Desmond. Good morning. Good morning.

[00:47:52] Dick Miller: Uh, on the uh the police bill, I think there's a broader point to be made. And you know, obviously the police uh need all our support and deserve our support and uh they're in a very dangerous business and the public should be behind them. But the broader point is this that we give in this society, particularly when we pass gun prohibition legislation, we really give the police the a monopoly on the use of force. We turn over to them uh all of our rights in a way to protect us, and it's terribly important that uh police activity, particularly after disciplinary action has been taken, uh be made known. In other words, the police activity should not be private, should not be secret, and it's for the protection of society, notwithstanding all the uh debt that we owe to the police. It's it's for the public's interest and the public's protection uh that we should not be in a situation where police activity can be pet uh uh which is a serious and proven serious after a disciplinary hearing should be kept quiet. And that's a much broader point. And I think the legislature missed that point uh when they adopted this uh bill.

[00:49:18] Randall Roth: Let's see uh what our legislator, Milton Holt, has to say about that.

[00:49:22] Milton Holt: Yeah, thank you, Dick. Um people have to realize that we've got the tenth safest city in the United States. Um this law has been any uh only been changed for last couple of years regarding the disclosure of the names. Um but at the same time, uh these same police have kept our city pretty safe.

[00:50:11] Randall Roth: You're saying one reason they've been able to keep it so safe is that they haven't worried about having their names disclosed if they were found guilty of disciplinary action short of a criminal action. Well, I well, no, I I've just seen that uh as far as uh what's been said that if if we pass this bill that we will have a secret kind of police and that the police will continue to to harass and and do things um, you know, just because this bill passes that is not appropriate that uh we can see by the records that we have the police have kept this city pretty safe and then we shouldn't expect that things that we will change just because this bill passes.

[00:50:16] Randall Roth: Milton, do we know and and and this is probably unfair because my hunch is you wouldn't know this off the top of your head, but do we know whether the number of complaints against police officers in in Hawaii are relatively high or relatively low as compared to other places because we compare crime statistics. Correct.

[00:50:35] Milton Holt: I would not know that answer. Maybe if he's still listening, could could get back with us. Uh I don't have the specifics on that.

[00:50:43] Randall Roth: Okay. Uh Dick Miller, do you have uh any other comment before we move on?

[00:50:47] Dick Miller: Yeah, well, I think that one has to always uh understand that it's not what's happening now, it's what may happen in the future. It's like our civil liberties laws uh protect us against the dangers that lurk in the in the distance. And uh even though we have a wonderful police chief and a wonderful police department, at least in Honolulu at the moment, although I'm not sure about what's going on let's say in the island of Hawaii. Uh it seemed we have to protect the public against the possibility of excess police power and it seems to me that simply requiring the discipline once it's taken by the police commission in serious cases is made public is a small price to pay to ensure the public that this information gets out.

[00:51:34] Randall Roth: Okay. Thank you, Dick. You're welcome. Our next caller is Lori from the Puna area. Good morning, Lori. Hello. Um I was calling about the charges for public information. I I think it's something that deserves quite a bit of public discussion, um before we we charge more than the cost of reproduction. In fact, I mean my general point of view is that the cost of reproduction is the the maximum that should be charged for information that's been generated with our taxpayer dollars. Um that generally available information is what we need to operate as a democracy, to be citizens. And uh it's also good for for business, that um if we want to have a a thriving small and large businesses in in our state and in the world, um information is vital. Um and I I don't see government getting into the business of charging more than it more than the cost of reproducing um that that opens up all kinds of questions about you know, what should be charged above the cost and how and I think it deserves wide public discussion and shouldn't just be um lightly uh open that door.

[00:52:55] Randall Roth: Okay. Desmond Byrne?

[00:52:57] Desmond Byrne: Yeah, I I like the words wide public discussion. This is what is not taken place in Hawaii. The agency that should have done this, Hawaii Inc. set up six or seven years ago is going to be killed June 30th, and they should have looked at this wider picture and they didn't. They killed they they've lost their funding. They've lost their budget, right. And um unfortunately, they did not look at this issue. They set up FYI, which was good, the gateway, electronic gateway, but they did not look at these issues which they were mandated to do. Consequently, these bills come along without a context. The federal government set up um a study of this thing. They've done several things and they've done their homework on it and it's a model for Hawaii to adapt to, but we've started passing bills and doing things without any broad context of the public right to know. How do we give information in a democracy? Make it available? All that kind of thing. It hasn't been done here in Hawaii. This thinking, this context, is lacking.

[00:53:58] Randall Roth: Okay. Um Milton, I I I'm just I'm looking at uh Desmond's article this morning in the paper, and he says if Hawaii is to be anything but a parochial backwater, our elected officials should study this issue closely, develop a long-term vision and then implement proactive, forward-looking policies. Um do you agree with that? And and and if so, is is anything going on along those lines, or is that just not necessary?

[00:54:24] Milton Holt: Well, I think in this particular case, like I said, um it may be necessary um for the type of information that uh as we enter an electronic age. Um but all we're talking about here is is a reproduction, or or the are we talking about providing information to to commercial users uh or the tape with 90,000 um entities on it. And uh and we gave authorization so that the department could go out public could get the public input that they want, I mean chapter 91 uh, come up with a fee schedule if uh they decided to do so. Uh this does not mandate any kind of uh fee schedule and does not mandate any um high charges So it doesn't necessarily prevent what Desmond is saying we should be doing. That's correct. You could go through this process, and you could get the input that uh Desmond is talking about regarding setting a policy.

[00:55:19] Randall Roth: Desmond? Um, I agree that this will get the public hearings on the rules, will give that opportunity in this. But um the other bill that failed, which would have given the same kind of thing to all state agencies, will come up again next year, and this should have been studied in the interim and to go right through the whole process so that everybody's prepared for the next legislative session because it's not going to be just DCCA, Commerce and Consumer Affairs, it's going to be all government agencies and the rest will want to jump on the bandwidth. I guess with a tight budget, they're all going to want to have a profit center. Okay. Well, we've got some more callers on the line. I just want to remind people who may have tuned in late that this is the Pop Radio show. Our guests in the studio are Milton Holt who is the a senator and administrative officer for Kamehameha schools, Bishop Estate, and Desmond Byrne, who is president of Common Cause Hawaii and owner of Honolulu Information Services. We're talking about the public's right to know. When is it that the disclosure of something should be mandated, when is it that there should be an exemption from disclosure of some sort? And we would like your questions and any brief comments that you'd like to share. Our number is 955-8821. We have ZUMA from Diamond Head. Good morning ZUMA.

[00:56:32] Zuma: Hello, good morning, gentlemen. Uh thanks for accepting my call. Um I have a question about um the public information and the and the bills that you're talking about. It seems that um there's so much information that's so accessible, and I think the government sees that there may or may not be uh a profit to be to be made um for whatever reason, whatever revenues that that may um uh detail, but it seems that it's kind of of the wrong thing to do to to have someone

[00:57:00] Speaker 1: information that should be readily available anyway or or should be public anyway. I just don't understand what why is it why was that even a consideration to even charge for that information.

[00:57:12] Milton Holt: Well, I guess, Milton, you would say that that we've been charging all along.

[00:57:16] Desmond Byrne: We have been charging, we haven't it's not uh, that's why we say in in my article that yeah, we're not doing anything different uh to the individual user to to the person off the street who wants to get information from from the state and and they're not paying any more in that respect. All we did was give authorization to allow the department to go and uh go public, have hearings and determine whether they want to set up a fee schedule.

[00:57:40] Milton Holt: Well, and even the big users I think have have been charged in the past, correct, but it's been very difficult to figure out what the cost of reproduction was.

[00:57:48] Speaker 1: Right. Okay. So I'm sorry. Uh, well, thank you. Um, so does this mean that the basically it's um a means for the government to maybe control um matters a bit more?

[00:57:59] Desmond Byrne: Well, let's let's see what Desmond Burn has to um say about that and in the points that Milton just made.

[00:58:05] Milton Holt: Not necessarily, but I mean you got to watch for that. But I think the important thing to realize is that there's there's a transition from what you call hard copy things, that 25 cents a photocopy, to electronic information. And the federal government has had a hard time making that transition to making available information electronically. And the state of Hawaii is going to have an equally hard time determining and looking at all these issues that information will more and more be delivered electronically and there are public policy issues. You don't want people coming down to government offices. You want them to sit in their office or home, tap into a computer and get the information, and not take up the highway, parking or government employee's time. It can save all those things, if this thing is thought through properly in Hawaii.

[00:58:54] Milton Holt: And and you're saying that the big companies, they repackage what government has accumulated and they make it user friendly, I guess is the term, so that the little guy like me at his home terminal can make use of that information.

[00:59:07] Desmond Byrne: Right. They add quality to it, they mix it with other databases and they deliver it to somebody sitting at their home of useful information.

[00:59:14] Milton Holt: Okay. Thank you Zuma.

[00:59:16] Speaker 1: Uh we have a couple more callers on the line and we're down to the last 4 minutes or so. Bill from Palolo. Good morning, Bill.

[00:59:22] Bill: Hey, good morning. Uh I wanted to make a comment that our our entire government is moving towards secrecy and this is just one of those steps to help that out. We're being locked out. Uh for instance, access. Uh you dial up access on a computer and you want to check on this special session that the just over now and every one of those bills are marked history, as if it's a done deal, which of course it was, it just came and went. Uh you can't get drinking water information from the government. Uh this Milton, you've just got to unlock our government. Uh you've got to turn around and go the other way and Desmond, I'm 100% behind you. Thank you.

[01:00:09] Desmond Byrne: Well, quickly, the government have never really thought out what information citizens need or want. We don't have any superintendent of documents here. We don't have any real publication of government documents. We don't have a whole bunch of things. The government's not really thought out what do the citizens need in a democracy to function properly. It's on an ad hoc basis, trying to pull uh teeth out of getting information out of the government.

[01:00:37] Milton Holt: What do you think, Milton? Well, basically what we, you know, our our the policy decision made by the legislature to to well, again, this is an isolated amendment. It applies only to DCCA. People have to understand that. It doesn't go you don't feel that government in Hawaii is is any more any more secretive or you know, with holding information anymore than any other government? No, I believe we're one of the most open states in the in the whole nation. And I think Desmond can check the other states and find out how far we've gone on legislative access, public access. We're quite far ahead of many other states.

[01:01:13] Speaker 1: Okay. Well, we have time for one more call and we have uh Bradish, I believe it is Bradish Johnson from Maui. Good morning.

[01:01:18] Bradish: Good morning. Uh you've been listening to your show with a great deal of interest. And I have briefly one comment to make. I was um recently subjected to uh an unfortunate case of police abusive behavior here in Maui. And the long and short of it was that after having subjected my complaint to the police department, it's been well over 3 months, and I have yet to hear back from them. Is this a normal procedure here in Hawaii that our local police establishment should take uh over 3 months to respond to a citizen who has a valid complaint uh such as this?

[01:01:52] Milton Holt: Uh Desmond, I assume that's something you don't necessarily know about. Well, the general problem is that the police standards of behavior and everything are not clearly out in the public domain in libraries and that you really know what's what. So a citizen like the caller has a great deal of difficulty knowing what the standards are in order to see whether they're meeting the standards or not.

[01:02:16] Speaker 1: Okay. Bradish, I appreciate your call. We're out of time. Completely out of time.

[01:02:36] Randall Roth: Next week, we're going to be talking about the public's role in campaign financing reform. I think you're going to find it interesting. You've been listening to the Price of Paradise radio show. I'm Randy Roth. Aloha.