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Sunshine Memo 12-14
Early Adjournment, Threats,
and Adequacy of Agenda
Requester asked for an investigation into whether
the Ewa Beach Neighborhood Board (EBNB) violated the Sunshine Law
at its meeting held December 10, 2009 (Meeting), by (1) the Chair’s
unilateral adjournment of the Meeting, (2) an EBNB member’s
threats of physical violence and property damage to a member of
the public who sought to videotape a meeting, (3) the Chair’s
action in shoving Requester, an EBNB member, and (4) a presentation
on “Conduct of Board Meeting.”
OIP noted that in the time since the Meeting, the EBNB has had considerable
turnover in its membership. This opinion is therefore intended primarily
as guidance for the current board members in their efforts to comply
with the Sunshine Law.
OIP found the following:
(1) A board may adjourn a meeting without considering
all items on the board’s agenda, unless it has begun hearing
testimony or otherwise considering an item. Once the board begins
considering an item, it must hear testimony from all interested
persons prior to adjourning the meeting. The Sunshine Law is silent
on the question of who has the authority to adjourn a board meeting.
In the absence of any allegation that the meeting’s early
adjournment prevented members of the public from testifying on
an issue the board considered during the meeting, OIP could not
find that the adjournment violated the Sunshine Law.
(2) The Sunshine Law provides a public right to
make an audio recording of a meeting, but does not provide a similar
right to make a video recording, so while OIP recommends that
a board allow video recording, the law does not require a board
to do so. However, if a board wishes to ban video cameras at its
meetings, it must inform members of the public in a reasonable
manner. Threatening physical violence and damage to personal property
is not a reasonable way to ask a member of the public to stop
video recording a meeting. Such threats are a deterrent to members
of the public seeking to attend the meeting, and thus violate
the Sunshine Law’s requirement that meetings be open to
the public.
(3) The Sunshine Law’s open meeting requirement
is concerned primarily with the public’s right to attend
board meetings. Since a board member does not have a lesser right
to attend a meeting than the general public, physical aggression
directed against a fellow board member at a public meeting is
likewise inconsistent with the Sunshine Law’s open meeting
requirement; however, OIP could not find from the evidence presented
here that the former EBNB Chair’s act of elbowing a member
in the back constituted an independent Sunshine Law violation.
(4) The Sunshine Law does not specify who sets a
board’s agenda, nor does it require that agenda items be
non-defamatory. As the “Conduct of Board Meetings”
issue was on the agenda, and as the presentation apparently did
address the conduct of board meetings, OIP concluded that the
agenda gave reasonable notice of what the board would consider
under that item. The question of whether the presentation was
defamatory is outside OIP’s jurisdiction.
Finally, OIP noted that the criminal laws are a more
appropriate means than the Sunshine Law to pursue complaints of
threats or physical altercations directed to either board members
or members of the public.
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