A professional, outside unbiased report sounds like money well spent here. It's a good check on making sure the fire district is spending taxpayers' money responsibly and disposing of property that it does not need.

Willy-nilly property acquisition without professional and capable study, is indicative of an amateurish, wasteful bureaucracy. Good on this new board for implementing grand jury recommendations and insisting that forethought and reason be introduced into this district’s decision making process.

Nice job board, but do you really think the property purchases were bad decisions. At anytime they can sell what they have already purchased and for a profit. Using the funds for other projects.

A win...Win.

The district has not been purchasing properties "willy nilly". They've actually been quite smart in their purchases of property. The properties they've purchased will be needed in the future and were purchased for significantly less than they would have been when the time comes that they are needed. They've been quite good conservators of the tax payers money. I challenge you to find a more fiscally well managed state, county, city or district organization in the state.

The real issue is that the fire district is overfunded. Time to restructure and return $ to the tax payers. Once the district is running on a properly adjusted budget we can then take a look at how the money is spent.

common sense:

you'll have to make changes to state law to do what you suggest. The state law is what determines the district's funding. Until that changes, the district will continue to receive the funds it currently does. You're free to put up an initiative to change it.

The Fire District has zero control over the increase in demand for its services which is unilaterally created by the huge increases in square footage and occupancy being approved by all of the local jurisdictions within the Fire District. Even in Atherton the total square footage of development has increased dramatically as small single story ranch style homes are replaced by huge three story homes (full basements plus two above ground floors).

What the Fire District can do is proactively increase its property holdings so that it can then increase its response capability to meet these huge increases in square footage and occupancy. This foresight allowed for the construction of an greatly expanded Station 2 in East Palo Alto, an enlarged Station 6 in Menlo Park and will permit the timely expansions of Stations 4, 1 and 3.

Just imagine where we would be if the Fire District of 2020 had the same response capacity that it had in 1990! The new developments would then essentially have to steal fire response capability from the rest of the community and everyone would suffer.

" In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. "

- Eric Hoffer

“On the other hand, those who reject the present and fix their eyes and hearts on things to come have a faculty for detecting the embryo of future danger or advantage in the ripeness of their times.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

The Fire District purchased the lot next to Station 3 last year for less than $5 million and now a vacant lot of about the same size on Selby is on the market for $8.9 million.