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Police procedures: If you’ve ever been to the Honolulu Police Department’s headquarters on Beretania Street you’ll know that you need to get through a serious security check if you want to go inside the building.

And inside is where the Honolulu Police Commission meets publicly twice a month to, among other things, hear from citizens who may have a beef with those folks with guns and badges they have to get past to get to the public meeting.

It’s not surprising that people would find that intimidating, to say the least. What’s surprising is that the police commissioners don’t seem to understand why people would feel that way. Even more shocking is that the commission clearly has little interest in trying to find a more welcoming space to hold its meetings because, as they agreed at a discussion on the matter earlier this month, that would be a drag for the police chief and his staff.

Kinda made The Sunshine Blog wonder if the commissioners actually worked for Chief Joe Logan rather than the other way around.

“I kind of object to the premise that people are afraid to come to the police department,” Commissioner Ann Botticelli sniffed. “I think that’s a little insulting to the good men and women of the Honolulu Police Department who are committed to public safety.”

Commissioner Laurie Foster declared it’s good for people to come to the police department and see how wonderful the police really are. “There’s also an atmosphere of professionalism, an atmosphere of discipline that I think is impressive,” she said.

Vice Chair Kenneth Silva thought it may be OK for the commission to meet somewhere else every once in a while. But then he’d still want uniformed officers on hand to make sure that when people do come in “they have to behave.”

Commissioner Jeannine Souki thought it would be a burden and costly for the commission staff to have to set up meetings elsewhere.

Commissioner Libby Char pointed out that people can testify over the phone if they don’t want to come in.

Commission Doug Chin closed off the discussion with this:

“We are a commission for an agency and the agency is the Honolulu Poice Department,” he said. Meeting at the department “allows the chief and his deputies to take time away from other duties in a convenient way.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Chin said, for the commission to meet anywhere else on a permanent basis.

“If people are intimidated, let us know,” Foster chimed in.

Its phone is 808-723-7580. Email is policecommission@honolulu.gov.

One person who’s already told them what he thinks is Honolulu criminal defense attorney Ali Silvert. He sent the commission a note urging it to find a new place to meet.

Silvert recently was on a panel with other civic leaders when the discussion turned to the subject of public accessibility at the Legislature and at the police commission.

“I related how the police commission conducts its hearing inside HPD Headquarters and how running the gantlet of police officers to both get to the hearing room and then when having to stand up and speak,” he tells The Blog. “It is stifling.”

“I strongly urge the commission to address this concern and discuss options available to it to move out of the HPD building and into some place that is more public friendly,” Silvert says. “Open and transparent government does not occur when members of the public do not attend public meetings because they are scared to simply because of where the meeting is held.”

The Blog couldn’t agree more.

For the record, the Maui Police Commission years ago moved out of police headquarters and into an off-site meeting room at the liquor commission specifically because commissioners worried people were scared to come to meetings.

The Kauai Police Commission and Hawaii County Police Commission also hold meetings away from the department.

And one more ask of the Honolulu Police Commission: Can you please turn your nameplates sideways during the meetings so they face the audience and the livestream cameras? See photo above. That way people watching can see the name of the person who is speaking. The Blog thanks you.

Police presence: And speaking of police with guns at public meetings, that was quite some show at the Honolulu City Council meeting last week when a bunch of HPD officers and Chief Joe Logan appeared in uniform to protest a $1.5 settlement the council was poised to make in the case of Lindani Myeni.

Myeni was shot and killed by police in 2021 after he struggled with officers who had been called to a Honolulu home by a woman who said he had entered the home without permission and was acting strangely. Officers tried to subdue Myeni, including using a Taser, but he was beating one officer so badly another officer shot him.

The council postponed a decision on the settlement. And Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Steve Alm offered to meet with the council in executive session and explain his findings that the officers were justified in the shooting.

That prompted Public First Law Center attorney Ben Creps to send a letter this week to the council saying no way should you meet with Alm in secret.

“Any such briefing should occur in an open meeting,” Creps says. “Mr. Alm is not the Council’s attorney. … Mr. Alm does not have an attorney-client relationship with the Council, and thus, unlike the Corporation Counsel, he has no ethical or fiduciary responsibility to diligently and competently investigate relevant facts and law related to this civil matter before speaking. There is no basis under the Sunshine Law to exclude the public from any briefing by Mr. Alm.”

Creps also pointed out that a bunch of armed police officers at a public meeting tends to be kind of a buzzkill for the public.

“Even when not intended, the mere presence of numerous individuals — armed with firearms — can have a chilling effect on public participation in an open meeting,” he wrote.

“It would be helpful if the Council could suggest that the Chief of Police avoid creating situations that may be viewed as public intimidation by HPD.”

Can’t we all just get along?: It was only minutes into the Oct. 8 meeting of the Hawaii when the chair threatened to eject one of its eight commissioners.

Ralph Cushnie of Kauai, who was appointed just this year by the minority leader in the Hawaii House of Representatives, said, “Point of order, chair.”

“What rule am I not following now?” responded the chair, Mike Curtis, also from Kauai and already irritated.

The Zoom meeting then quickly devolved into of arguing that included demands that Curtis resign or be fired over complaints by Cushnie and others that he was doing a bad job running things since his appointment a year ago.

Even The Blog, who loves good political drama, was taken aback at how how nasty it all was. Here are some direct quotes from participants who at one point numbered over 100: “liar,” “lying,” “dictatorship,” “mafia,” “communism,” “bullying,” “shut your mouth,” “jail” and “insurrection.”

“I pray for you,” one testifier told Curtis. Curtis was unmoved.

Cushnie was not ejected and Curtis did not quit. But after it was all said and done the commission had failed to resolve the single item : a complaint that the commission had violated the Sunshine Law governing open meetings.

The Office of Information Practices had determined that the Elections Commission had erred by not having a working Zoom link on its agenda for the Aug. 27 meeting.

Curtis, with the advice of Deputy Attorney General Bryan Lee, asked for a motion to nullify the Aug. 27 meeting (a public brouhaha that lasted an excruciating five hours). But the commission could not come to agreement.

Some commissioners, including Cushnie, wanted the commission to meet again before the Nov. 5 election instead of Dec. 18, as Curtis proposed.

For many months now Cushnie has publicly and repeatedly complained that Hawaii’s election system is seriously flawed despite there being no evidence of the alleged flaw.

Insert big sigh here. The Blog fears election denialism is likely to continue for quite some time in our islands.