As far as these type of “Public Hearing’s,” they generally fall under Administrative Law procedures which give the adm. judge wide latitude. (State or Federal) ( “show-hearing’s”) You’d have to dig into the record to see who-demanded-what & under what regulation, but a lot of that back-n-forth is not on the record.
I haven’t looked, but there should be a master-file of all public filing’s available from the Court that has jurisdiction.
-have a lawyer friend who does “advocacy law,” (but not against harmless telescopes) I’ll ask him how these things generally roll. (I personally agree with Mr Z. on this one.)

Edward: I do not know if this procedure is standard, but suspect not. It seems to me to be a cave in by the Democratic administration to the protesters.

Robert,
Is this cross-examination of experts by the general public the standard operating procedure for such hearings?

tangentially–
“Simple machine to keep employees happy on pay-day.”
https://www.rubegoldberg.com/artwork/post-war-world-no-53/?c=45

These people are not primitives, but reactionaries, attempting to rebuild an imagined past, as a political cause to lever themselves into some degree of power, and the wealth that comes from power, in a progressive political polity, Hawaii.

In this case they are actually acting very well “educated”, in that the groups opposing the TMT are organized around Hawaiian cultural advocates, by progressive political operatives. The progressives have ruled Hawaii for decades, which is long enough for them to run into their standard problem, that there are not enough government-funded jobs to go around. So, those who lose out in that lottery search for a “cause” to ride into prominence on, in search of recognition, ….very much like Alinskyite “community organizers”. Its a competition similar to what we’ve seen in the universities since they were taken over in the mid-1970s, of being “more insurgent than thou”.

The people already in positions of power because of their fealty to progressive causes will naturally feel they cannot afford these “insurgents” to look more progressive than themselves. They thus provide a judicial circus for the “organizers” to act out, while not looking like those in power are anything other than judicial. This, of course, doesn’t let the TMT get built, but *does* occupy the time of those seeking prominence.