Let there be light: The head of Hawaii’s crucial public information oversight agency is stepping down — finally — after nearly 13 long years on the job.

Cheryl Kakazu Park first announced her own departure Monday in a statement circulated to lawmakers and other state officials. That was one day before her boss, Gov. Josh Green, made it doubly official at the bottom of a press release listing the many appointments he made to various state boards and commissions just ahead of a legislative deadline.

Park, whose last day is Friday, has been steering the Office of Information Practices since 2011 when she was appointed by then-Gov. Neil Abercrombie who had just fired Cathy Takase from the job. Takase had stood up to him when he wanted to keep judicial nominees secret and the governor was in need of someone who would be much more cooperative when it came to hiding information from the public.

In that regard, Park has not disappointed. She has never been much of a champion of the public’s right to know. Among other things, she’s advocated for higher fees on public records and fought against the release of draft documents and other records that would help the public understand why decisions are made, even after the Hawaii Supreme Court said otherwise. Under her watch, the amount of time it takes her office to resolve an appeal when a public record has been denied has reached an all-time high — an average of 872 days.

Green, who has proven to be a much stronger advocate for government accountability and transparency than either Abercrombie or his immediate predecessor David Ige (also never much on the public’s side in these things), has named Carlotta Amerino, a longtime OIP staff attorney, as acting director.

Amerino joined OIP in 1996, fresh out of law school, but left in 2004 for another job. She came back in 2011 after Park was put in charge.

The Blog is hoping she can shake off the cloud that has hung over the office for more than a decade and bring some needed fresh air to this very important agency.

Media management: And speaking of public oversight bodies, some Hawaii senators want the Hawaii chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists to consider creating some sort of process to help the public figure out which news organizations follow best journalistic practices when it comes to ethics and accuracy.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing on Senate Concurrent Resolution 155 for Monday morning.

The Sunshine Blog is a fan of media councils such as this one in Washington state that seek to hold the media accountable for their own foibles.

Once upon a time, Hawaii had its own media council and perhaps the SPJ folks can fire that engine up again. The group started in 1970 and its now seemingly inactive website boasts that it was the oldest of what was then (circa 2015-ish) five such media councils in the country.

Our presidential caucus is bigger than your presidential caucus: The Hawaii Republican Party is boasting that more people in the state voted for Donald Trump than Joe Biden this month.

“Despite challenges, including lower than anticipated voter turnout and the suspension of seven candidates’ campaigns, the Hawaii Republican Party successfully outperformed its Democratic counterparts in caucus participation,” a March 14 party press release stated.

Trump received 4,348 votes in the GOP’s caucus on March 12. Nikki Haley came next with 68 votes, followed by Vivek Ramaswamy with 26 votes and Ron DeSantis with 25, although all three had by then bailed.

Compare those numbers with the 1,047 votes Biden earned in the Democratic Party of Hawaii caucus held on March 6. Uncommitted was second with 463 votes, as The Blog previously reported. Marianne Williamson — she’s also now out of the race — was a distant third with 50 votes.

Update: Party member Bart Dame says Hawaii Democrats will send 31 delegates and two alternates to the national convention in Chicago this August. Of those, 15 delegates will be pledged to Biden while another seven delegates and will be supporters of the “uncommitted” option.

An additional nine “un-pledged delegates,” or “superdelegates,” are free to vote as they choose. The nine includes Hawaii’s two U.S. senators, two U.S. representatives, the governor, the state party chair and the two Democratic National Committee members.

Who’s afraid of RFK Jr.?: Last month The Blog reported that the presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had submitted the requisite number of signatures of Hawaii voters to put the independent candidate on the 2024 ballot.

But the Democratic Party of Hawaii has challenged the bid from We The People, a new party that is trying to get its nominee on other state ballots including at least four swing states. A hearing on the matter is set for next week, says the Hawaii State Elections Office.

“Everyone should play by the rules — especially in an election where so much is on the line, including the perceived integrity of our democratic institutions,” the party said Thursday in a statement. “We are asking that the rules be enforced and the sanctity of Hawaii’s ballot be upheld.”

Whatever that means.

Nationally, the Kennedy campaign is reported more likely to hurt President Joe Biden’s reelection chances than former president Donald Trump’s. The independent campaign received a financial boost this week when Kennedy chose wealthy entrepreneur and lawyer Nicole Shanahan as his running mate.

Getting a Green light: Speaking of ballot access, the Green Party of Hawaii regained it just in time for the 2024 election “due to the efforts of dozens of passionate volunteers who worked hard over the past few months to gather signatures,” the party said in a press release this week.

Even though the Green Party has been on the Hawaii ballot for over 30 years, it had to petition to be on the 2024 ballot per Hawaii State Elections Office rules. The Greens are already fielding Jackie Keefe of Maui for the District 6 state Senate seat.

Also on the ballot is the Hawaiian Republican Party and Democratic Party of Hawaii, of course — they are always on the ballot! — and a bunch of people have already pulled papers for various offices.

Also qualified for the local ballot this year are the Libertarian Party of Hawaii, No Labels Hawaii, the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the Solidarity Party of Hawaii, even though no candidates for those parties have filed yet to represent them. Candidates can also run as nonpartisans.

The Blog can hardly wait til the June 4 deadline to file those candidate papers and see who’s actually going to run this year. Oh boy (insert head exploding or crying emoji here).