Formal Opinions

Opinion Letter No. F24-05 March 7, 2024 Emails Containing Attorney-Client Privileged Information Requester made a request to the Hawaii County Department of Finance (FIN-H) in 2019 for a copy of security camera video footage.   FIN-H responded that the tape was...

Opinion Ltr. No. F24-04 January 31, 2024 Evaluations of Fire Chief The Hawaii Fire Fighters Association requested the evaluations for the Honolulu Fire Chief (Fire Chief) for the years 2017, 2018, and 2019.  The Honolulu Fire Commission denied access to...

Section III(B) of this opinion was found palpably erroneous by a First Circuit Court order dated July 3, 2025, in Pub. First L. Ctr. v. Def. Council; Jon N. Ikenaga; and Agribusiness Dev. Corp. Bd. of Dir., Civ. No. 1CCV-24-0000050...

Opinion Ltr. No. F24-02 November 2, 2023 Maui County Councilmembers on the Maui Metropolitan Planning Organization Policy Board Need Not Comply With a Different Permitted Interaction’s Requirements Requester asked whether the three Maui County Council (COUNCIL-M) members appointed to serve...

Opinion Ltr. No. F24-01 October 16, 2023 Closed Investigation Finding and Conclusions A Department of Transportation (DOT) employee (Employee) filed a workplace violence complaint against a coworker.  After the investigation was concluded, the Employee sought a copy of the final...

Opinion Lt. No. F23-05 May 18, 2023 Records Relating to Request for Proposals A requester appealed the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR)’s denial of his request for records relating to a request for proposals (RFP) regarding the Ala...

Opinion Ltr. No. F23-04 May 18, 2023 Attorney-Client Privileged Communications A record requester (Requester) made a request for copies of communications between the County of Maui Department of the Corporation Counsel (CORP CNSL-M) CORP CNSL-M and its clients regarding the...

OIP Op. Ltr. No. F23-03 May 18, 2023 Name of Student Members Serving on Admissions Committee for William S. Richardson School of Law An anonymous requester made three separate requests to the University of Hawaii (UH) for records showing the...

Opinion Ltr. No. F23-02 April 14, 2023 Inmate Database Information A requester asked PSD for a dataset consisting of selected fields from PSD’s Offendertrak correctional database system covering the period from 2000-2018.  After initially estimating fees of over a million...

Opinion Ltr. No. F23-01 December 12, 2022 Permitted Interactions; Interactive Conference Technology; Board Packets; and Related Sunshine Law Questions The appellant was a member of the State Council on Mental Health (SCMH) at the time she filed two appeals alleging...