Informal Opinion Letter Summary

Sunshine Memo 11-7

Restriction on Board Member Discussion

Requester, a Kauai County Council member, asked whether a line of questioning that he was not allowed to pursue, which related to an agenda item at a Council meeting, would have violated the Sunshine Law. The agenda item in question was a request by the Prosecuting Attorney for Council approval to apply for federal grant monies and to use those monies for the Kauai VOCA (Victims of Crime Act) Expansion Program.

This presented a factual question of whether Requester’s line of questioning fell within the scope of an agenda item as required by the Sunshine Law.

OIP found that, to the extent that Requester’s line of questioning would have related to whether other sources of funds existed for the VOCA program so that the grant monies did not need to be used for that program, the line of questioning would have been reasonably related to the agenda item and thus would not have violated the Sunshine Law.

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