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The year didn’t end quietly.

There was the letter from the federal government moving Honolulu’s rail project forward, the unsuccessful attempt to block civil unions and a police action against Occupy Honolulu — all in just the last few work days of the year.

But there were also a number of exclusive must-read stories from Civil Beat, including a flurry of Fact Checks examining the accuracy of Gov. Neil Abercrombie‘s review of his first year. Here are 10 such stories, followed by my own look back at the year and how the First Amendment fared in Hawaii.

• Hawaii Astronomers and Animals Vexed by Oahu’s Blazing Lights
• Can Pro-Business Charity Pay For Rail Lawsuit?
• State Wrestles With How To Make Developers Keep Their Promises
• FACT CHECK — Abercrombie: Hawaii Construction Jobs Grew at 2nd Highest Rate in Nation
• Abercrombie’s First Year, According To Abercrombie
• FACT CHECK — Abercrombie: The State Saved $20 Million Through Energy Efficiency Efforts
• New Honolulu Council, Mayor Had ‘Quiet’ 2011
• Hawaii Pot Minister’s Bail Denial Called ‘Rare’
• FACT CHECK — Abercrombie: Hawaii Second In Nation for Energy Savings Per Capita
• FACT CHECK — Abercrombie: Hawaii Was Only State To Improve In All Areas on National Test

In case you missed some of the controversies about First Amendment issues this year, here are 10 columns I wrote examining a range of issues.

• Honolulu Police Union Wants Entire Force to Be Secret , Jan. 13, 2011: The state police union is happy to enforce laws when they apply to others, but doesn’t want to comply when a law requires it to do something it doesn’t like.
• Masters of Secrecy, Jan. 28, 2011: Why would 15 state senators want to limit what the public can know about how the state pays its employees?
• Beware Good Intentions , Feb. 7, 2011: Hawaii has political leaders who want to trample on the First Amendment by punishing speech.
• HPD Officer Salaries: A Tale of Confusion and Contradiction , March 21, 2011: Honolulu police make up the law as they go along.
• Maui Cops Cast Chill Wind, June 1, 2011: Maui police go overboard in attempting to identify web commenters.
• Hawaii Open Records Agency Lets Public Down, July 13, 2011: The Office of Information Practices, the state agency charged with acting in the public interest and enforcing the state’s open records law, is a paper tiger.
• Hawaii Legislature Needs to Give Records Office a Backbone , July 14, 2011: Instead of worrying about trendy topics like Facebook and Twitter, as the OIP’s executive director suggests, it’s essential that the Legislature focus on a much more fundamental issue: the power of her office.
• Cooking the Truth at the Hawaii Office of Information Practices, July 26, 2011: Whenever you see a government agency give itself an excellent report card without any independent input, as the OIP did, you have to wonder whether it’s not leaving out some important ingredients. The truth being one of them.
• Honolulu Police Declines to Name Promoted Officers — Then Names Them, Aug. 8, 2011: The Honolulu Police Department can’t make up its mind about how to comply with the law.
• Hawaii Public Has Right to Record Police , Aug. 23, 2011: It’s not the media that has the right to record video, audio and still pictures from a public place, such as a street or sidewalk. It’s the public. And when limits are imposed on journalists, they’re actually being imposed on all people — a cause for concern for all of us.

The Series:

• 2011 Year in Review — Civil Beat Tells Hawaii’s Story
• 2011 Year in Review — DC808
• 2011 Year in Review — Hawaii
• 2011 Year in Review — Honolulu
• 2011 Year in Review — Land
• 2011 Year in Review — Money
• 2011 Year in Review — Education
• 2011 Year in Review — Ethics
• 2011 Year in Review — Government Transparency