House Committee on Judiciary (JUD) - chair: Gilbert S.C. Keith-Agaran, vice chair: Karl Rhoads

Tuesday, February 21, 2012, 2:00 p.m., Conference Room 325

Testifier: Janet F. Mason, Vice-President, LWV of Hawaii

Click here to view HB2742

Chair Keith-Agaran, Vice Chair Rhoads, and Committee Members: The League of Women Voters cannot support this bill. We believe the public is best served when all parties to county Council proceedings have an opportunity to learn of and participate in these important civic gatherings. We recognize that many essential services are provided by county-level governments and many important decisions such as land use and planning occur at the County level of government. For this reason it is not appropriate to either exclude interested citizens from such “Board” meetings or exclude notices and other records of the meetings from Section 92-2, Hawaii Revised Statutes. Citizens have a right to know about government operations and participate in government decision making. We believe this bill is so egregious that we cannot offer amendments, and we hope you will defer the measure. Thank you for the opportunity to submit testimony.