Don’t forget our Sunshine Law

Perhaps with all the uproar over the dispute at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs between its trustees and chief executive officer, other irregularities have been drowned out.

For example: When the trustees wrote their own letter rescinding the CEO’s request for a legal opinion from the U.S. State Department, there must have been some meeting of the minds to decide on writing it.

And meetings about matters of substance require advance notification, under the state’s Sunshine Law.

But this never happened.

In the scheme of things, such shortcomings are easy to miss, but they shouldn’t be forgotten. CEO Kamana‘o Crabbe took a protocol shortcut by sending the letter to the secretary of state without the trustees’ consent. But it looks like the trustees missed a key step, too.

The Sunshine Law is there for a reason, and as long as OHA remains a state agency, it is bound by that law.

You might want to learn Spanish

Spanish is the most commonly spoken language in the United States other than English, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community survey. No big surprise there.

But Hawaii is on a short list of states where that is not the case. In this state, Tagalog is No. 2. (That Filipino language ranks No. 3 in California and Nevada.)

The second most popular language is Yupik in Alaska, German in North Dakota and French in Louisiana, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire.