1999-07-07 Charter Commission Minutes

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Page 15 of 23 Mayor with a County Manager of some kind for the public discussion at least. ARTICLE V, EXECUTIVE BRANCH , Planning Commission. This is just again, a reiteration of how do we choose these Members and publicly funded nonpartisan elections, by Council district or appointment by the Council Member, seem to be the two best ways and I think, you know I don’t know much about the Liquor Commission and the Police Commission and there isn’t a Fire Commission although I know a fireman in Kohala who thinks there should be and he will send you a fairly long list of reasons why and maybe I’ll get to that here in a second. ARTICLE VI, EXECUTIVE BRANCH , the Fire Department. It’s this fireman’s contention, who lives in Kohala and he has wrote the operating manuals for hazardous wastes or hazardous materials handling and various other things for the County Fire Department. It’s his opinion, I spoke to him this morning, that the County is at great financial risk from lawsuits because the Fire Department is not handling their duties according to commonly accepted practices and federal law. And the County could very easily be found negligent because the Fire Department is not really doing their job correctly and I don’t know how to legislate it and I just point that out to you and you’ll probably get some communications from at least one person regarding this and the problems he’s had just getting the Fire Chiefs and the officers to understand the law. He says they don’t understand the law. They don’t know what they’re supposed to do. They don’t know what their job is so how do you get qualified people to serve as the officers of our Fire Department or Police Department? I don’t know. ARTICLE VIIIDEPARTMENT OF WATER SUPPLY , the . Okay, same deal on trying to figure out how to get them elected or appointed. I also differ from Mr. Boyd on when John Ray asked him whether he thought the requirement to be an engineer is a good one. And it’s stated in the Charter that the Manager of the Department of Water Supply shall be an engineer, a registered engineer and I don’t believe that’s a good requirement and I’ll tell you why. When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Okay? When you’re an engineer who’s good at designing and expanding wells and water delivery systems, that becomes the glasses through which you view the world and in our discussions in the Waimea Water Round Table and it’s a good process and I’m really glad that I’m invited and play a part in that, I asked Mr. Pavao, and I brought it up in there, that if we’re in a time of tight budgets in government, it’s important for us to look at least cost solutions to our County’s needs, whether they’re businesses or residences or whatever our needs are, it’s really important to look at least cost options. Okay, if you’re an engineer that’s drilling wells and building pipelines, that’s your only solution and you don’t look at water efficiency. You don’t look at other least cost solutions that are being implemented as we speak, around the country by forward thinking people who don’t have a supply mentality. The demand side management can yield more water for less cost and yet the County government has no mechanism for actually doing those evaluations and that’s why I’ve advocated in print, an integrated water resource management planning process and that will eventually come to this island because the County Department of Water Supply now does not look at the least cost options and all the public input and accountability that goes into what would be an integrated water resource plan and planning process. And so again, the process is important and that this be implemented and I guess it’s going to be funded by the State government after they’re done with Oahu. Anyway, so the Manager should be able to hire the engineers he needs but he needs to direct policy and be able to do assessments and financial assessments of the least cost ways to supply water needs and not necessarily how to build more pipelines to provide the water services. Our needs aren’t in terms of gallons per day. Our needs are in terms of cold water to drink and water for our crops. I have a nursery business so you know I’m very concerned that agricultural water be available but at a least cost and that the total array of options be mandated by the planning process. Section 8-5. Administrative Supervision Under . Department of Water Supply. I would like to see that come under the general supervision and control of the County Council just because if the Water file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 7-7-99.html7/1/2011