Several departments in the County of Hawaii, led by the Civil Defense Agency, were honored by the Big Island Press Club with its annual Torch of Light awards, given for the best efforts to promote openness in Hawaii.

The Torch of Light Awards have been handed out since 1997.

In 2008, the state Civil Defense Agency, having obtained a grant for emergency notification services, approached Hawaii County and Kauai County to be test cases.  All Hawaii county departments were given the option of signing up for voice, email, and text notification.

Civil Defense, Public Works, Water Supply, Fire, and the Department of Human Resources Safety Division have signed on.  In addition, through the efforts of Public Works Public Information Officer Noelani Whittington, the Public Works, Civil Defense and Fire departments set up a hotline at (808) 334-9559 to provide public notice about bridge and road closures, or construction, wildfires, or other pertinent information.

The Hawaii Police Department also made its own strides in public notification, signing up for a separate system to disseminate its press releases. For that, the Press Club awards a Torch of Light Honorable Mention to the Police Department.

The Torch of Light award is announced each year on March 16, Freedom of Information Day, honoring the birthday of James Madison. Born in 1751, Madison was author of the U.S. constitution and the foremost advocate for openness.

The Press Club at the same time presents its annual Lava Tube Awards in recognition of the year's most notable offenses against the public's "right to know."

Hawaii County Council members earned this year's Lava Tube award for their "disregard of the Sunshine Law when reorganizing last June, sparking a lawsuit between the Council and West Hawaii Today that produced a restraining order against the Council and an order for the county to pay $23,000 in attorney's fees to the newspaper," according to the Press Club's news release.

In the restraining order, Judge Ronald Ibarra barred any further Council action until council members reversed the reorganization and gave proper notice of the matter.

A Lava Tube Dishonorable Mention award was also made this year to the state Office of Information Practices for its low work output. The agency has rendered only five formal opinions in the last two years, about one fifth of its normal work product.