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Honorable Gary Safarik, Chair and Members of the County Council HAWAII COUNTY COUNCIL Page 2 January 18, 2005 2. Reference to wave action on p. 89. This particular policy does apply to both wave and tsunami inundation. It is a rewrite of a current policy and does not change the meaning of the current policy. It does not include ordinary flooding, which is dealt with by other policies. 3. Council Resolutions 58-97 and 330-96. I have enclosed copies of these resolutions. They deal with rezoning in the mauka Kona area, particularly Kaloko Mauka. The council has generally been following these resolutions for Kaloko Mauka rezonings for the past several years. 4. Level-of-Service ("LOS") standards For police and fire protection. This is an issue referred to by Councilmembers Arakaki and Holschuh. During the Planning Department's community hearings on the General Plan, a number of people suggested that the plan should include level-of-service standards. After consulting with the police and fire departments, we proposed these standards, which are similar to what these departments have been trying to achieve. The concern is that these standards may lead to legal liability. Level-of-service standards are quite common in Mainland general plans and have not led to successful lawsuits. As a general rule, the government is not liable to members of the general public who are injured by criminals or fire, even if the police or fire departments didn't provide the level of protection that people want or expect. See Ruf v. Honolulu Police Deyt., 89 Haw. 315 (1999). Nor does putting these standards in the General Plan mandate future funding, just as the listing of various projects in the current General Plan does not mandate that they be funded within a particulaz time period. The govemment will always have more desired goals than it has the financial resources to achieve. It is true that including such standazds is a policy decision that emphasizes these Sre and police protection goals, and if they are included in the General Plan it will signify a desire to move toward these standards. Ultimately, it is up to the Council, as a policy decision, whether it wants to include these level-of-service standazds. They can be deleted without the General Plan having to go back to the Planning Commission. 5. DWS standards on p. 247. This refers to potable water. All DWS systems aze currently potable water systems.