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UPDATED/Corrected 6/12/11 9:00 p.m.

Dear Mr. Mayor:

I write to you today as the leader of the City and County of Honolulu to bring to your attention a problem with your administration that I can’t imagine you would allow to persist if you were aware of it.

Simply put: You have a department in your government that is not obeying the law.

What’s worse, that department is the Honolulu Police Department.

The Police Department for eight months¹ has refused to to do what every other city agency and every state agency has already done — abide by Hawaii open records law when it comes to making public the names, job titles and salaries of its employees.

We’re running out of options to resolve this. And that’s why I’m turning to you.

The situation is this: The department routinely publicizes the names of its officers when it suits its needs. (See examples².) But when asked to make public the names, job titles and salaries of its employees by Civil Beat, Chief Louis Kealoha refuses to live up to the letter or spirit of Chapter 92F³ of the Hawaii Revised Statutes.

I thought that in this great nation of ours no man or woman is above the law. But today in Honolulu, under your watch, that doesn’t appear to be true. One group of people, the employees of the Police Department, are treated differently from other public employees.

As a result, we in Honolulu have a secret police force. A citizen cannot find out the names of the officers sworn to protect them, or what job they’re assigned to. Citizens also cannot find out how much they’re paying the people who work for them. (For the record, this information is readily available⁴ in most jurisdictions in the United States.)

The chief seems to be making up the law as he goes along. This gives the impression that government acts arbitrarily, undermining public confidence in our institutions.

You think I exaggerate? Let me give you just two recent baffling examples — just six weeks apart — of what seems to be arbitrary decision-making when it comes to the undercover “shield” in the open records law.

• I asked your Police Department to make public the information it is required to release under HRS 92F-12 about two officers in serious legal trouble. Officer Boyd Kamikawa is awaiting sentencing for injuring a pedestrian while driving drunk last year and was accused of being involved in another crash even though he’s prohibited from driving. Major Carlton Nishimura was indicted in February on extortion charges related to an illegal gambling operation. The department denied my request in its entirety.⁵ It said: “The information requested will lead to the identity of undercover police officers.”

Let’s compare that April decision with one in March involving exemplary officers.

• When the Police Department in February issued a press release announcing award recipients, I was surprised to see the names of all the members of the District 7 Crime Reduction Unit — especially because the chief had told me that Crime Reduction officers were clearly covered by the undercover exemption to the open records law. Yet here the chief ignored the exemption. The department provided the information about these exemplary officers that it refused to provide about the two members of the department in deep trouble with the law, even though in both cases the department has said the officers work or have worked undercover.

Decisions like these make it appear your chief is making up the law as he goes along.

You want more?

1. Your police chief has told me his department keeps no records of whether an officer has ever worked undercover, the reason the law allows his department to use in withholding the name, job title, etc. of an officer.

2. Your police chief has no definition of undercover by which to judge whether an officer qualifies for the exemption. So how he applies it, by definition, has to be arbitrary.

3. Your police chief routinely makes public the names of officers — when it suits his purposes — without ever checking whether an officer could be put in danger because he or she worked undercover in the past, or even is currently working undercover. Yet he claims that his highest priority is the safety of his officers and refuses to make public the names of employees as requested by Civil Beat, saying he has an obligation to protect their safety.

4. Your police chief told Civil Beat that it was not reasonable to think that all officers could be covered by the undercover exemption, and proposed releasing the names of all officers except those who worked in a couple of units. But when SHOPO threatened that its members would file individual invasion of privacy lawsuits if he went forward with that approach, your chief backed down. On the campaign trail, you spoke about how you would stand up to unions. In this case, it looks like your administration chooses not to cross one of your unions rather than abide by the law.

UPDATED 5. Your police chief has not released the names, job titles and salaries of any officers, including the officers at the top ranks of the department, which are clearly public.Why? ¹

As an attorney sworn to uphold the law, it’s time that you do so. That would be consistent with the promises of transparency and openness you have made as a candidate and as a mayor.

In your state of the city address, long after your Police Department had begun stonewalling Civil Beat, you said:

“The style of leadership at Honolulu Hale today has shifted from one that was shaped by political expediency to one that emphasizes professional management.” You went on to talk about hiring people who share your vision of “openness and transparency in government.”

If you stand for openness and transparency, how do you justify the secrecy of your Police Department?

Civil Beat’s Aug. 20, 2010 request for the names, job titles and salaries of Police Department employees is still pending. Here is an opportunity to make your actions match your words.

I await your response.

Respectfully,

Honolulu resident John Temple

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PS/In case you missed previous articles I’ve written on this subject:

• HPD: Law Doesn’t Apply to Us
• Honolulu Police Union Wants Entire Force to Be Secret
• Government Agencies — Other Than Honolulu Police — Share Salaries
• When Should Names of Police Officers Be Public?
• HPD Officer Salaries: A Tale of Confusion and Contradiction

1. Here’s a quick summary of what has happened until now.

On August 20, 2010, as part of its commitment to sharing with its readers how their tax dollars are being spent, Civil Beat requested the names of all city employees, their respective job title and salary or salary range.

Corporation Counsel Carrie Okinaga on Sept. 7 sent Cathy Takase, then-director of the Office of Information Practices, a letter seeking guidance on how to respond.

On Sept. 15, Takase issued the city an opinion. She wrote: “The UIPA requires the City to disclose the name, title and salary (or salary range for covered employees) for all City employees, except present or former (undercover) law enforcement personnel.” In response to the specific question regarding the exception for “present and former employees involved in an undercover capacity,” she wrote that the exception “limits withholding to those law enforcement employees that are, or were, engaged in an undercover law enforcement capacity.”

Takase offered to provide the city “guidance” on whether certain employees fall under the exception. But the city never took her up on the offer. Instead it went to the Legislature for guidance. Its bills went nowhere.

In the meantime, Civil Beat has made a number of other requests under 92F-12 to test the city’s approach to the law.

As I’ve written, the city’s approach has been confusing and contradictory: HPD Officer Salaries: A Tale of Confusion and Contradiction . ↩

2. Here are just a few examples of how the department has made public the names, photos and other information about officers without ever checking to determine whether it could be endangering an undercover officer.

• In July 2009, Midweek published a picture of and named all 17 members of its graduating class.
• Here’s an example of the department’s annual report, where it not only names officers, but also publishes easily identifiable mug shots:
• The department has its own blog, where it publishes all kinds of information about officers:
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3. Here’s the language of Hawaii law that applies to this matter.

§92F-12 Disclosure required. (a) Any other provision in this chapter to the contrary notwithstanding, each agency shall make available for public inspection and duplication during regular business hours:

The name, compensation (but only the salary range for employees covered by or included in chapter 76, and sections 302A-602 to 302A-640, and 302A-701, or bargaining unit (8)), job title, business address, business telephone number, job description, education and training background, previous work experience, dates of first and last employment, position number, type of appointment, service computation date, occupational group or class code, bargaining unit code, employing agency name and code, department, division, branch, office, section, unit, and island of employment, of present or former officers or employees of the agency; provided that this paragraph shall not require the creation of a roster of employees; and provided further that this paragraph shall not apply to information regarding present or former employees involved in an undercover capacity in a law enforcement agency; ↩

4. Here’s a link to the information about officers in Utah:

Las Vegas is an example of a city with real transparency:

If you’d like to find more examples of public employee salaries being public, here’s a good place to start: ↩

5. The department cited HRS 92F-12(14) and HRS 92F-13(2) in denying Civil Beat’s request. The former includes the exemption from disclosure for “present or former employees involved in an undercover capacity in a law enforcement agency.” The latter states that governments are not required to disclose “records pertaining to the prosecution or defense of any judicial or quasi-judicial action to which the State or any county is or may be a party, to the extent that such records would not be discoverable.” ↩