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13,781.
That’s the number of digital photos I’ve taken and saved in the past 12 months. That’s how many images are in my current Lightroom catalog, which dates back about a year. Actually, the real number of photos taken is higher, since some get deleted without being archived. But 13,781 will do.
Yesterday I selected my favorite Kaaawa photos taken during the month of April, when the seasons are changing from wet to dry, from cool to hot, etc. Just click on this photo to see the full April gallery.
One of the last emails I received in my legislative account as the session was ending announced the somewhat belated completion of the House staff directory, with photos of staff in each office. According to this message from the office of Vice Speaker Michael Magaoay, each office will be receiving just two copies, one for the representative and one for general office use.
Then the email goes on:
On another note please be aware that this is a STATE IN-HOUSE DOCUMENT which means it is not to be Xeroxed for the “GENERAL PUBLIC”. If you think about it do we really want the “GENERAL PUBLIC” to have all of the staff workers photos, names and for whom they work. So please be aware that this directory is for in-house use only. [emphasis in the original]
What? Apparently they didn’t think about the law requiring most government records to be available to the GENERAL PUBLIC for inspection and copying. If you think about it, it’s the law.
A quick check of the Uniform Information Practices Act found this item among a list of types of information that are required to be publicly disclosed and readily available for inspection or duplication during regular business hours:
Secion 92F-12(a)(14) The name, compensation (but only the salary range for employees covered by or included in chapter 76, and sections 302A-602 to 302A-640, and 302A-701, or bargaining unit (8)), job title, business address, business telephone number, job description, education and training background, previous work experience, dates of first and last employment, position number, type of appointment, service computation date, occupational group or class code, bargaining unit code, employing agency name and code, department, division, branch, office, section, unit, and island of employment, of present or former officers or employees of the agency; provided that this paragraph shall not require the creation of a roster of employees; and provided further that this paragraph shall not apply to information regarding present or former employees involved in an undercover capacity in a law enforcement agency;
So the directory and its information on names of House employees and what office they work in is all required to be available to the public, along with lots of other specific information not included in this directory. I’m not sure about the staff photos, although since these were all posed photos taken for directory purposes, there isn’t likely to be any privacy interest in them.
So I sent a brief email off to the Speaker, Vice Speaker, and Majority Leader suggesting that the “in house and confidential” description sends the wrong message both to staff and the public. Silence. I sent a follow-up email, this time suggesting that “someone” might blog about the directory if the situation weren’t corrected. Again, no reply.
So now someone has blogged about it.
A couple of news stories are worth mentioning on this Thursday morning.
Almost everybody has had an experience with an office refrigerator, which is what gives this story from the Mercury News about a building evacuation caused by a refrigerator its legs.
In the end, 325 AT&T employees poured out to a parking lot that was the company’s designated evacuation site. A total of 50 firefighters and 18 emergency vehicles raced to the scene. Seven employees, who were vomiting or complaining of nausea, were treated at area hospitals.The aroma of rotting food was hard enough to stomach. But when an employee decided to remove the mess to a conference room and scour the fridge with a cleaning fluid similar to 409 or Lysol, “she didn’t smell a thing,” said Capt. Barry Stallard of the fire department.
The woman on fridge duty had previously undergone nasal surgery for allergies.
And then, in the context of our local rail transit debate, there’s this NY Times story on German planning for communities without cars. We are so far behind!
A bizarre memo by Magoay. But equally strange is the lateness of the directory.
If I recall correctly, the directory was always printed much earlier in the session to serve its intended purpose; that is, so staff and members can put faces to offices and get a sense of who is working where.
What’s the point of wasting resources to print a directory when session is over and the vast majority of the staff are gone?
I mean, it’s not like a high school annual where you can reminisce and get people to sign cute messages, eh?
The tire tracks in #13 will wash away with the next high tide. If only the tide would take that chain link fence along as well…
I agree that it seems to defy the purpose of the directory if it comes out at the end of session. When I worked at the Senate it was always nice when the directory came out, since we got to comb through it and figure out who we didn’t know. It was really handy back in ’06 when Senate staffers didn’t wear badges. I wonder what took the House so long to print theirs this year? Heck they take pictures at the beginning of session, it’s just a matter of kludging it all together and putting names to faces. Thanks for writing about this latest attempt at unnecessary secrecy.
really pretty pics. you should make postcards or e-cards… now, what we really need is a picture of a cat + sunrise.
For reasons that utterly elude me, the House is publicity-phobic.
Take, for example, the limitations it places on broadcast of its committee proceedings via Capitol TV to Olelo. The House does not broadcast these proceedings unless the chair of the committee requests/authorizes it and it is then approved by the Speaker, a process which is overseen by the Vice-Speaker. On the Sneate side, braodcasts are chosen by the Broadcast Project coordinator in the Public Access Room of the non-partisan Legislative Reference Bureau. If some Senators had their way, their sneezes would be televised. As a result, the House broadcasts only a fraction of what the Senate broadcasts and, if it’s a joint House-Senate hearing on a particularly weighty topic, well, you can just about forget about seeing that because both the House and the Senate must agree to the broadcast.
Just as House broadcasts are managed by the Vice-Speaker’s office, so is the House Directory. So, with three different Vice-Speakers in the past 18 months (Karamatsu, Chong, and Magaoay), completing these tasks is like deja vu all over again, someone reiventing the wheel from scratch. Then when you layer on Magaoay’s clumsy, secretive assertion of power (anyone remember the grant-in-aid debacle?) and his OM’s lack of, and disinclination toward, what may be seen as clerical skills, well, you can see why the directory was not just late, but virtually expired, when delivered and accompanied by an awkward attempt to secure an agreement to suppress its clearly public contents.
The more things change, the more they remain the same.
The House still introduces “secret” amendments at decisionmaking time, and “secret” proposed amendments that must be picked up in the chair’s office. The House leadership is basically anti-sunshine as demonstrated by their actions. I have not verified it, but I believe they use only part of their budget for televising hearings, not even spending the money allocated for that purpose.
I’m not sure if it is related, but if you see a picture or Olelo broadcast of a House committee meeting, it seems that few use computers. There are still huge stacks of paper testimony and bill texts that no one can actually read in front of many committee members. Senators seem to use computers. Perhaps they can’t read all the stuff either, but at least they are not killing trees.
Maybe it’s all a matter of wanting to conduct business they way it used to be conducted, in the dark ages when it was ok to run government from smoke-filled rooms, making decisions out of public view.
The Senate has implemented a so-called “paperless project” that appears to have cut down on the most profligate use of paper. Whether that has improved the work product depends on whether they actually used to read the paper and whether they now read their computers instead. The House uses computers, at least on the floor but, it’s pretty obvious that they’re often spending their time IM’ing each other on them or texting each other on their phones/”crackberries.” Just try watch them read their device and then turn and look at another Rep. and make a face. 21st century version of passing notes in grade school.
I love all your pictures Ian. Keep posting them. Mahalo!
I can handle a few chain link fences – but if the tide would WASH AWAY THE POWER LINES, wouldn’t that be a miracle worth wishing for? Is there anything more visually ugly in this state than the power lines? Still, love your photos, Ian. Shoots, that’s less than 40 a day, which really isn’t many at all!