I was browsing through State of Hawaii web sites yesterday. Have you noticed the new look of the sites of different departments? It seems they are aiming for some sort of uniformity.

I thought that might be a good idea.

Then I looked closer, and it became obvious the new look does not involve making important information more readily available.

I’m concerned about agency minutes, the starting point for accountability. After minutes, the statutes and rules governing each agency should be available.

So let’s browse.

Take the Department of Agriculture. I was interested in meetings of the Board of Agriculture. And it looked like it would be easy to find information about the board’s meetings and actions, because there’s a link at the top for “meetings and reports.” It led to another page of links. At the top, a link to “Board of Agriculture Meetings.” So I clicked again.

This third level had yet another set of links to agendas and “actions” of the board.

Along with these links was this message:

Minutes of meetings are available upon written request.
Please include your name, address, phone number, name of board and date of meeting. Requests may be sent to: [Department of Agriculture address]

So after clicking through several levels, you discover that Board of Agriculture minutes are not publicly available online.

Is somebody actually paid to devise these uninformative sites?

Over on the right of the page, there’s another set of links. At the top, the Agriculture Development Corporation. Will there be any substantive information about it?

I clicked.

What you get is a nice looking page with a formal description of the corporation, its stated goals goals, and links you can click to a list of directors, its strategic plan, and its “game plan,” whatever that is.

Minutes? Nope. Meeting agendas? Forget it.

So I backtracked to the “board actions” link.

This next level presented links to a series of meeting dates. I clicked one at random, and what did I get? Minutes lite. Not minutes, but a copy of the meeting agenda with brief entries as to action taken on each agenda item.

For example:

Request for Consent to Assignment and Conversion of General Lease No. S-3764, Lot 16, Waimanalo Agricultural Subdivision, Koolaupoko, Waimanalo, Oahu, Hawaii

Action: Approved

Disposition: Documents have been drafted and are being reviewed by

the deputy attorney general.

Why do I think this is a problem?

Well, it is obviously an attempt to fob off the public with something far less informative than the law requires.

By law, minutes must include information far beyond an abbreviated statement of action approved.

Here’s what the Office of Informaton Practices has to say about the requirements for adequate minutes.

Minutes must provide “a true reflection of the matters discussed at the meeting and the views of the participants.” HRS § 92-9(a). The primary purpose for minutes is to record what the decision-makers (the board members) did and discussed during the meeting, so that the public can scrutinize their actions. While the law also requires the minutes to reflect the views of participants in the meeting who are not board members, it is sufficient for the minutes to describe, in very general terms, the positions expressed by these other participants.

A board is not required to keep a transcript of a meeting, although a transcript can serve as minutes if the board prefers. Paraphrasing the discussions and testimony taking place at the meeting is fine, so long as readers can tell what was discussed and what the various participants’ views were.

Minutes are required to include the following specific information:

(1) The date, time and place of the meeting;

(2) The members of the board recorded as either present or absent;

(3) The substance of all matters proposed, discussed, or decided; and a record, by
individual member, of any votes taken; and

(4) Any other information that any member of the board requests be included or reflected in the minutes. HRS § 92-9 (a).

Simply stating that the assignment of a lease was approved comes nowhere close to being a reasonable substitute for minutes.

So much for the Department of Ag.

Next I tried the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.

I chose a link to the Hawaiian Homes Commission, and it looked like meeting agendas and minutes were going to be readily available. Meetings are listed by year. For each meeting, the listing gives the date, location, time, a link to the agenda, and a link to completed minutes.

The problem? The last meeting for which minutes are available was June 19, 2012.

Here we go again.

If I can find the time, I’ll try for a broader review.

In the meantime, choose your favorite agency and see if minutes of their boards and commissions are available online.