Police body cameras became standard law-enforcement equipment last January in Kauai County. But nearly seven months later, Hawaii’s police union continues trying to stop their use.

On July 1, the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers went to court to appeal a June decision by the state Labor Relations Board. The board found that Kauai County had been within its rights to launch its body camera program last January. Kauai didn’t need the union’s explicit approval to do so, the board determined.

SHOPO disputes that decision in a belabored 51-page appeal that alleges the program, as conceived and implemented, violated the collective bargaining agreement governing the county and union members. SHOPO points to Article 1.D of that agreement, a clause that reads “No changes in wages, hours or other conditions of work contained herein may be made except by mutual consent.”

We don’t dispute that SHOPO and its members have a significant interest in how body cameras are used in Kauai. But we agree with the Labor Board’s June decision, which found that the county met its obligations under the agreement by consulting with union leaders. Here’s why:

The collective bargaining agreement between the county and SHOPO separates issues that require dialogue between the two parties — so-called “meet and consult” or “meet and confer” matters — from those that require both sides’ approval, or “meet and agree” topics.

The union holds that as a change in a condition of work, the body camera program is subject to the agreement’s “meet and agree” requirements. But the Labor Board characterized body cameras as “no different from a police officer’s weapon, hand-held radios, Tasers with built-in cameras, in-car dashboard cameras, baton and uniforms and the rules and policies adopted by KPD relating to use of such equipment.”

Those are solid points, and ones not overcome by the union’s legal argument that body cameras are different, simply because they “record the officer’s words and actions second by second for later viewing, for almost all contacts with the public and in other situations.” There is nothing to suggest that recording their words and actions changes the inherent conditions of Kauai officers’ work, though as the union suggests, the video record of that work is available for review should the need arise.

Moving Ahead On Maui, The Big Island, Oahu

It’s easy to see why SHOPO is pulling out all the legal stops to get some level of control over body camera implementation. Kauai isn’t the only county moving forward. The Maui Police Department recently kicked off a month-long pilot project that will help it determine whether to implement the cameras department wide. The Honolulu Police Department is testing body cameras, with an eye toward launching its own pilot project later this year.

And on the Big Island, the department has completed a pilot, and now only needs to purchase the equipment to launch its program.

SHOPO sees the trains leaving the station and knows that if it doesn’t hit the brakes now, decisions about how and when those cameras are used will be made by others. That is undoubtedly unsettling for a union accustomed to wielding its oversize influence on police matters at the state Capitol, at county police commissions and in departments around the state.

In seeking to make a case as to why the implementation of body cameras in Kauai is of concern for the union, SHOPO seems to imply that cameras are only on the table because of the huge national interest in the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri. Brown was killed by a policeman in August 2014, “which incited a series of nationwide protests, riots, and civil unrest that took center stage in the national news, social media, and political arena during the ensuing months following the initial incident,” SHOPO says in the appeal.

The filing goes to great pains to point out that a press release on body cameras, distributed last last year by the department, was the first that Chief Darryl Perry had ever issued “regarding a piece of personal police equipment.” The filing noted that Perry called the effort “a hot button topic” because of mainland police shootings.

SHOPO sees the trains leaving the station and knows that if it doesn’t hit the brakes now, decisions about how and when those cameras are used will be made by others.

Yet the same appeal acknowledges that Kauai police officials took interest in body cameras after attending an International Association of Chiefs of Police conference two years earlier, in 2012. So, are Kauai police jumping on the bandwagon of a hot-button topic, or does the department’s legitimate interest go back four years?

Though they have been a consistent part of our national policing dialogue for a few years now, body cameras are still a relatively new technology. Policies, guidelines and best practices around their use are still evolving in jurisdictions around the country, and that evolution provides a strong reason for ongoing dialogue between the Kauai Police Deparment and the police union.

But the management decisions over this technology are ultimately up to the department and the county. Body cameras serve the interests of the public; and the voting public will hold county officials accountable for those decisions.

The police union, meanwhile, has no such accountability. As its history has shown, it will act in what it perceives to be the best interests of its members, as it should. But those interests don’t always match the best interests of the public.

Body cameras bring objective oversight to police actions in the line of duty. Their implementation should be guided by this technology’s promise to bring greater transparency and accountability to law enforcement — not by SHOPO’s interest is using its collective bargaining agreements to control the fine points of Kauai’s body camera program.

SHOPO’s protestations in this matter will have their day in court, but they won’t stop the forward progress on police body cameras across Hawaii. That’s a good thing. As we’ve written many times before, body cameras have the ability to be of extraordinary benefit both to police officers and to the public they serve.

Toward that end, the disposition of this Circuit Court appeal can’t come quickly enough — for the officers of the Kauai Police Department, for the County of Kauai and for the island’s 66,000 residents, who will undoubtedly be made safer by this technology.