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A year ago, we requested three case files from the on officers who had been fired for misconduct. We just got the bulk of them.

In August 2010, we asked the to weigh in on whether background information on people applying to be judges is public information. More than three years later, OIP finally sent us an opinion.

Last summer, we asked Honolulu officials to tell us how many requests for public records the city had received over a two-year period. They wanted $11,000 to search their files.

Those are just three recent situations involving Civil Beat. And we’re not the only ones running into roadblocks. Citizens, nonprofits, even legislators and other agencies seem to have similar complaints.

The question I have is why?

It’s not like the problem is new. The media is constantly reporting on the difficulties of getting public information. And this is in a state where there is a pretty good public records law on the books and judges generally side with public disclosure when a problem gets brought before them. Good law, favorable legal situation, bad practices.

There are imperfections in the process that the Legislature should address. And there are a few bills this session that would be a good start.

Gov. Neil Abercrombie could fix a lot of problems through executive action. The Office of Information Practices works for him and it’s OIP that sets many of the administrative rules governing public records. No legislative action required.

Cost is a big stumbling block to public records access, as Civil Beat detailed in a recent series. The costs are set by OIP and could be changed by OIP if the governor chooses. But he apparently doesn’t choose to, and he declined to talk to us for our series, saying it was all OIP’s problem.

The notion that public records requests are somehow bankrupting agencies is just not true. Our reporting found that most public records requests take very little staff time and many agencies release public records at no charge anyway.

We think Hawaii should follow the lead of the federal government and other states that charge only for the actual copies, not the prep work involved because the latter drives up the costs in Hawaii and often scares off even the most determined researcher.

Fundamentally, citizens shouldn’t have to pay to have information withheld; if the agency thinks it should be kept secret the agency should absorb the cost.

In one of our HPD cases, we asked for the files of three officers who had been discharged. HPD estimated the cost at more than $2,000. We nearly said no because of the price but then decided to play it through. We cut the department a check for half — about $1,000 — to get the process going.

The final bill turned out to be only $900, still high but certainly not as much of a yikes factor as the original estimate. We’ll never know where that $2,000 estimate came from because agencies aren’t required to document their time. Better would be to eliminate those charges entirely and keep a reasonable copying fee.

People shouldn’t have to wait months or even years to get the records. That’s a major problem here. There’s language in the law designed to prevent this, but in practice it happens frequently. Lawmakers or the governor should fix this.

We were told it would take 80 hours of work to find, review and copy our three police files. That was in January 2013. We thought that meant we’d have the documents in a couple of weeks. Instead, pages trickled out here and there.

In December, nearly a year later, we finally got the bulk of the records, including the most voluminous file on a cop who had been accused of raping a domestic violence victim. He was terminated — in 2011 for an incident that occurred in 2010. He was never prosecuted. That’s definitely a story of great community interest, but the public shouldn’t have to wait three years to find out about it.

There are several bills in the Legislature that would help improve the process in specific ways, including a couple left over from last session which, at least technically, are still in play. One would convert OIP from an agency under the governor to an independent commission. That would be a huge improvement.

Others would require more disclosure by top state officials about their activities and their finances, put in place fines for agencies that fail to release public information and require training in public information practices for new members of boards and commissions.

One bill requires that the names of people who are being nominated to boards and commissions be made public, an issue that we regularly tussle with Abercrombie’s office on.

Another bill confronts an issue that has also been a bone of contention between the press and Abercrombie — the release of names of judicial applicants. Two years ago, the press won a case — which means the taxpayers paid for it — forcing the governor to reveal the names of some candidates for the bench. A bill this year seeks to take the governor out of the equation by asking voters to amend the Constitution and require disclosure by the judicial selection commission. Needless to say, Abercrombie is continuing to oppose the idea.

We’re deeply interested in a bill that would require more disclosure of police misconduct records, although it falls short of eliminating an exemption from public scrutiny that Hawaii cops have enjoyed for nearly 20 years.

These are just a few of the issues that would benefit from a legislative tune up of the public records law and measures where public access and transparency are important.

We’ll be reporting on how things play out in the current session. But we also believe public access and government transparency should be important issues for the 2014 elections, especially in the governor’s race.

It’s time to acknowledge that public records belong to the public, not the state or the city.

• Contact Patti Epler at patti@civilbeat.com or (808)377-0561.