PICK your hat!

Bring your hats and support good government

For the first time in recent memory appointed and now even elected members of government have wandered off the reservation and become mavericks insisting the law be obeyed and government be transparent. Appointed Board of Ethics (BOE) member Rolf Bieber has filed complaints against fellow board members when he saw a clear violation of black letter law. Tim Bynum and Lani Kawahara out of sheer frustration are attempting to rip the Kabuki mask off county council secrecy. Bieber's filings against BOE members, and the editorials by Bynum Sunshine on Kaua`i? & Kawahara Just do it (The Garden Island, June 7 2009) are acts of defiance. The creation by Bynum and Kawahara of the underground website kauaiinfo.org indicates this defiance will be ongoing. I say underground in the sense that kauaiinfo.org is the publishing of government documents without approval from the gatekeepers. It is underground in the sense it directly challenges illegitimate power by doing something those exercising the illegitmate power do not want done (informing the public).

Bieber, Bynum, and Kawahara need vocal and active citizen support in this never-ending-battle between secrecy and transparency. Mahalo Mavericks , but beware! They will come after you. Even an unintentional error will be used to demonize and discredit you. Something as innocent as a sheet feed error when scanning and publishing a government document on kauaiinfo.org may result in a raid on your home, the seizure of your computer and photocopying equipment, and a six month attorney general investigation for altering an offical government document. Citizens should remain alert to these tried and true tactics abusers of power will deploy to maintain secrecy. Perhaps citizens should consider bringing all their hats down to county council and BOE meetings and take three minutes per hat demanding their right to know in a timely manner.

If board and commission members can become different people by changing hats (as the BOE believes) when they address governmental bodies should not citizens be afforded an equal right to change hats and become other people when expressing their mana`o.