Ain’t no sunshine when he’s gone: The Sunshine Blog was not the least bit surprised to see that even though the political body of Tommy Waters isn’t quite cold yet and a few City Council members still need to get reelected (or even elected, for that matter), council members are already plotting who will be running things in the coming year.

The Blog is surprised, however, by what appears to be a big thumbing of the nose to the Sunshine Law — a secret meeting of council members to select Waters’ replacement as council chair.

The scene of the crime? Zippy’s.

The state Office of Information Practices is on the case, thanks to a tipster who sent in a complaint (and, happily, copied The Blog on it.) Here’s the scoop as alleged in the complaint:

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This past Monday, five council members — Esther Kiaʻāina, Tyler Dos Santos-Tam, Matt Weyer, Radiant Cordero and Augie Tulba – got together at Zippy’s in Waipahu to plan who would be the next council chair.

Word on the street — which was ferreted out via some good old-fashioned shoe leather reporting by Civil Beat city government reporter Ben Angarone — says the new leader will be Tyler Dos Santos-Tam.

“I have no comment,” Dos Santos-Tam told Angarone when asked about the meeting.

Sadly, Cordero, Tulba and Kiaʻāina did not respond to requests for comment, and Dos Santos-Tam and Weyer kept their lips tight when asked. 

Weyer was similarly evasive. He said he had no idea an OIP complaint had been filed until Angarone told him. “I’ll defer to the OIP guidance and response,” he said about that. “I trust their process and I haven’t heard anything from them.”

But did he go to Zippy’s Waipahu on Monday to meet with four other council members?

“Same response,” he said. “I’ll defer to OIP guidance … as far as my conduct, I feel like I’ve complied with all the Sunshine Law requirements.” 

Did he? That is the key question.

The Sunshine Law says no more than two council members can meet privately to discuss official business. There is an exception, as it turns out, if members are choosing officers and then more of them can gather. But the law still limits that gathering to fewer than a quorum. In the nine-member City Council’s case that would be five.

The Zippy’s 5 would seem to constitute a quorum. 

“It sounds like a problem,” says Brian Black, executive director of Public First Law Center and The Blog’s normal go-to guy on all things Sunshine. He didn’t want to declare the meeting a violation without further information and reflection.

But as of Friday morning, OIP had opened a file and assigned a staff attorney to the case, Director Carlotta Amerino told us in an email.

Stay tuned, there’s a lot at stake here. And The Blog is not holding its breath because these things have a way of changing.

The City Council chair is a powerful position because the chair decides which bills get heard and which don’t, as well as who gets to chair influential committees and who doesn’t.

Last year, Waters (who thought he was running for reelection this year and then possibly for mayor in 2028) upended leadership after a particularly troublesome vote on sewer rates didn’t go his way. Dos Santos-Tam and Weyer were booted from their plum positions, among other changes.

And especially don’t count out Andria Tupola, the popular Westside council member who has been officially campaigning for the mayor’s job that will become available when Rick Blangiardi terms out in 2028.

She is the current vice chair and is known to be angling for chair. She was not invited to the Zippy’s hang and neither was Val Okimoto, the current budget chair, they confirmed to Angarone. Council member Scott Nishimoto was not there, either, though it’s unclear where he stands, because he was another one who didn’t respond to a request for comment. 

“I don’t think this whole thing is over,” Tupola told Angarone.

The ties that bind: The Blog is still scratching its head over the kerfuffle that emerged post-primary over how Hawaiʻi settles tied elections. It’s rare but does happen as we found out when two separate races, one for Senate and one for House, wound up with the exact same number of votes for each candidate. The Hawaiʻi Supreme Court had to settle the matter and was none too pleased with the process used by the state Office of Elections of putting the names of the two candidates in plastic capsules, rolling them around in a lauhala basket and then having an Office of Elections staffer draw the name of the winner.

Amazingly, the process could still be in use should there by a tie in any of the races decided on Nov. 3. While Chief Election Officer Scott Nago, under order from the high court, is working to come up with a formal set of rules governing tiebreakers, it may not be done in time.

In that case, Nago said at an elections office meeting Thursday, any tied contest would be settled the same way the House District 43 race between Republicans Kanani Souza and Sheila Medeiros after the August primary — with those much-ridiculed red capsules and the basket. This even though the Supremes rejected the outcome and ordered a new election for Souza and Medeiros to be held on the same day and on the same District 43 ballot as the general election.

Nago and his team tell The Blog that they are somewhat irritated that the media keeps referring to the capsules as plastic Easter eggs when in fact they are spherical in shape like a ball, globe or orb.

Fortunately, the public has an opportunity to weigh in on the matter of settling future ties. A public hearing is set for Friday at the Office of Elections in Pearl City. Video-conferencing via Zoom is also available, and you can submit oral and written testimony.

It’s possible, Nago said, that a new Hawaiʻi administrative rule detailing how to settle ties will be agreed upon and approved by the governor before Nov. 10, which is the day that the final results of the general election are officially announced. Because Nov. 11 is a federal holiday, the tiebreaker could be held as early as Nov. 12.

But as the proposed rules read now, the tiebreaker is still to be conducted by lot, which means, unless otherwise specified, “the making of a selection or decision purely by random chance, such as drawing names from a container, flipping a coin, or rolling dice.”

“Unless determined otherwise, individual capsules will be used to contain each individual piece of paper,” which will be placed within a container. The word lauhala is not to be found in the proposed HAR, but that does not mean its use is prohibited, either.

There’s more: “The container, depending on the type of container, will be shaken or rotated by someone other than the person who will be drawing the capsule or piece of paper. The person drawing will avert their eyes, so they do not see the capsule or piece of paper when they draw it from the container. The drawer will announce the name that was drawn.”

Nago did say that if another remedy is proposed at the public hearing, the elections office could decide to use that method in the case of a Nov. 3 tie. He did not suggest what that method might be, but The Blog hopes it will not be pistols at dawn.

Follow the kālā: The Blog was pleased to learn that OpenSecrets, the Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan nonprofit that tracks and publishes data on campaign finance and lobbying, has launched a major expansion so folks can follow the money in their home states. And just in time for the midterms.

The Blog checked out the Hawaiʻi overview page and found that $4.6 million had already been spent in our congressional races during the 2025-2026 election cycle. At the state level, the numbers for the current cycle have not been posted yet, but the 2023-2024 data is up. Example: $11.1 million was spent in Hawaiʻi state races, with 13.4% coming from out of state.

“Across the country, decisions that shape our schools, communities, businesses, and daily lives are made in statehouses, where money and influence can be much harder to see,” OpenSecrets said in a recent press release. “Our new state pages bring together campaign finance and political influence data to make it easier to see who is funding candidates and how money and influence move through state government.”

Follow the facts: Speaking of the midterms, American fact-checking organizations have combined forces through a joint newsletter that shares findings with media professionals, content creators and election observers. The newsletter, according to a press release from the journalism think tank Poynter Institute, will “highlight common findings and identify election-year information trends across the United States.”

“The growing spread of false information, driven by political polarization and AI-generated content, prompted U.S.-based fact-checkers to combine efforts,” according to the press release. People who want to get the newsletter can subscribe through an online form.

The collaboration is between FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, AFP Fact Check, which is part of Agence France-Presse; Factchequeado, a nonprofit that works in Spanish “to close the information gap for more than 68 million Latinos”; and Lead Stories, which offers “specialized feeds for political falsehoods” about the left (“blue feed”) and the right (“red feed”) along with a feed dedicated to debunking AI-generated deepfakes.