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Maui’s new Independent Nomination Board is intended to improve the quality of the county’s nearly 40 boards and commissions by adding transparency and efficiency to the selection of members.

The process includes the nomination board interviewing applicants, then sending a short list to the mayor for appointment. The final step is approval by the County Council.

But Councilwoman Keani Rawlins-Fernandez wants the public to be able to know who is applying for boards and commissions at the front end. Politics can get in the way of appointments, she said, “and for that reason, it’s in the public interest to ensure that transparency is provided to the public.”

So far, the County Council has only received four names among the 37 prospective new board members INB has sent to Mayor Richard Bissen for appointment. Some council members want those names disclosed publicly. They also want the minutes of INB meetings — board members have met several times since March — to be posted online in accordance with Hawaii’s Sunshine Law.

“There is extensive discussion about the need for transparency, and it is ironic that we are here now trying to solve the problem that the INB intended to solve, and (we are) still banging our heads against the wall here,” Rawlins-Fernandez said at the council’s Government Relations, Ethics and Transparency Committee meeting last week.

Prior to that meeting, committee chair Nohelani U‘u-Hodgins asked Deputy Corporation Counsel Yukari Murakami for legal opinions on which sections of the Sunshine Law allow the board to vote in executive session and if the actions of the board can be challenged if an individual was nominated in violation of the law.

Murakami responded in writing and suggested the committee go into executive session for further discussion.

The INB was created by a charter amendment vote in 2022 and implemented earlier this year. Its members were immediatley tasked with filling 57 vacancies across 43 boards and commissions.

INB Chair Jason Stone told council members during questioning at the meeting that he feels the board is doing what it was set up to do: vet applicants, then send names to the mayor.

“If you define transparency as like, are we letting everyone know who those people are, then I would say, no, we’re not doing that currently,” Stone said.

The fact that someone has applied for a board or commission is considered sensitive or confidential information, Murakami told the committee. She pointed to provisions in the Sunshine Law concerning personnel matters that allow boards to go into closed sessions under certain circumstances.

Rawlins-Fernandez said the council has taken up many issues that eventually required it to go into executive session. But the reason to discuss items behind closed doors has always been stated during the open session, she said, including personnel matters.

“I know it’s a balance of individual privacy rights and the public interest for transparency,” Rawlins-Fernandez said. “I personally disagree with the position of the department (of Corporation Counsel) that the fact that someone applied to be on a board or commission is sensitive information.”

She said the council should draft legislation to guide the process and achieve the purpose of INB’s creation, which she said was to allow the public to see who has applied for different boards and commissions. There’s always the possibility, she said, that qualified applicants may have been rejected for political reasons.

Longtime Kula resident Dick Mayer, who asked the Charter Commission in 2021 to create the amendment that eventually gave birth to INB, noted the board may go into executive session in at least some circumstances — such as to discuss a potential criminal record of an applicant.

In 2006, he was appointed by then-Mayor Alan Arakawa to be the chair of the Blue Ribbon Committee, an informal ad hoc committee that held similar duties to the INB, though it wasn’t bound by the Sunshine Law. He said the committee was able to find out some applicants had a criminal record by consulting with the police department or the judiciary system.

The Blue Ribbon Committee wanted to make sure they were “appointing people who should be appointed, not people who could probably be causing problems,” Mayer said.

County Council members also discussed the lack of transparency regarding record-keeping from the INB’s meetings. The Sunshine Law requires government boards to post minutes online within 40 days of a meeting unless those minutes are from an executive session.

U‘u-Hodgins had asked Stone in writing why the INB had not posted any minutes yet. Stone’s written response was that Gov. Josh Green’s emergency proclamation following the Maui fires last year allowed Maui-based boards to suspend the deadline for posting minutes, though this suspension is not indefinite. Video recordings of the INB meetings are available online.

Cory Vicens, Maui’s boards and commissions liaison, said she had not posted the minutes yet because of staffing issues — she unsuccessfully requested two additional staff members for the next fiscal year.

“It’s a full plate, and yes, additional staffing is required,” Vicens said, noting she has been the sole staff member devoted to boards and commissions since the current administration took office in 2023. Additionally, there were 39 boards and commissions, and now there are 43, she said, putting greater demand on her job.

Vicens told the council she was working on the minutes, and they would be available soon.

U‘u-Hodgins gathered a set of questions to send to the Office of Information Practices — which administers Hawaii’s laws promoting open and transparent government — including whether the identity of an applicant is considered sensitive information and a request for the definition of reasonable expectation of privacy.

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.