Menlo Park fire district board approves $2.5 million in additional spending

Here is my end of year prediction. The residence purchased by the District adjacent to the fire station in Atherton will never be used to expand the existing facility. The current fire station is more than adequate for any foreseeable need, and residents in the area vigorously oppose any expansion. Instead District residents just paid $5 million to house a public employee. Even a University of California campus Chancellor would blush at such largess.
Historically, San Francisco has provided a residence at Bush and Taylor for its fire chief. The current fire chief declined to move into the residence in 2006 and it has been an albatross for the city ever since.
District residents need to remember this fiscal irresponsibility next time we are asked to increase the District’s spending authority, such as Measure Y in 2015. By the way, three Board members are up for reelection next year. Time to clean house.

Fiscal irresponsibility is right! Looking forward to new board members and a new Fire Chief in 2018. Think it's time for him to retire.

Look at the facts:

• Maintained acceptable emergency response times in spite of significant growth and
increasing traffic congestion and gridlock
• Maintained fiscal responsibility with a balanced budget, no parcel tax and with wellfunded
and carefully targeted reserves
• Achieved 98% resident satisfaction with the Fire District’s level of service
• Continued our multi-year station replacement plan using funded reserves
• Made strategic property acquisitions for critical fire station replacements using funded
reserves
• Deployed to 9 wildland fires, 2 floods and 3 hurricane incidents, almost all costs were
reimbursable and District employees gained invaluable experience while maintaining full
local coverage. (The firefighters received overtime pay which may be shown as “regular
pay” or salary in media reports which is a misrepresentation of the facts)

• Established national leadership in the adoption of new technologies, specifically Drones

Peter,

While everything you say is true, it has NOTHING to do with the comments about fiscal responsibility....just sayin'

Glad to see Chuck as President, congratulations.

Roy

Given the huge traffic problems on both Marsh and Willow and the fact that neither Menlo Park or Atherton intends to do anything to ensure that emergency vehicles have a way to quickly transit these routes you would have to be an idiot to think that there is not an emergency situation.

Waiting until a house burns down or a patient dies because of inadequate response times would be an irresponsible decision.

All of the funds involved are existing property tax revenues and there are NO new taxes or parcel taxes required for the proposed new deployment plan. The District has a well balance budget and everything it does has been funded from carefully allocated reserves.

MPFPD is flush with cash, and has been for years. If it really want to be "fiscally responsible" it should consider reducing its property tax increment.

The population being served by the Fire District has grown rapidly and will continue to do so. Facebook will have 50,000 employees within 5 years and East Palo Alto is getting ready for a building boom not that it has more water capacity.

The Fire District has prudently constrained its operating expenses in order to create reserves which are now being used to expand the District''s capacity without any new property or parcel taxes.

When was the last time a school was built without a bond issue?

When was the last time that sewer treatment capacity was increased without new connection fees?

I challenge those who claim "fiscal irresponsibility" (including Roy), to provide evidence of a single action by the Fire District that was fiscally irresponsible.

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Peter, No one is saying that the fire department doesn't do an outstanding job and keep all its communities safe. They do a wonderful job. However, you can't ignore the concern of those commenting here that the Fire district is asking for more then they need. A four million dollar house for someone to live in is wasteful and irresponsible . Skeptics that there will ever be expansion to the station next door and whether it really is needed is a valid concern and time will tell.

I see Menlo fire vehicles parked all over the streets on Middlefield, Santa Monica and Santa Margarita al day and the need for more vehicles is very questionable. Another Fire truck is wasteful when a new one was just purchased. There is enough questionable financial purchasing going on and makes me wonder whether we are being given a snow job. The fact remains you are not convincing your community that all this new money is needed. Changes on the board seem inevitable if concerns brought up here are not answered to the public satisfaction.

The fire district has been fiscally responsible. It stays within its budget and sets money aside ahead of time for all its capital projects. That's a rarity for government.

Posters are likely unhappy about the percentage the fire district is allocated from the property tax pie. But the district doesn't decide how much of the pie it gets. That percentage is set by state law. The legislature can change this percentage. Talk to your state representatives if you want the percentages changed. The fire district can't change the allocation nor refund your money even if it wanted to.

Can we get a couple of sources for the 50,000 FB number,

I concur with Jensen and the fact that the fire fighters indeed do a tremendous job. Thank you. I understand I am no expert but doesn't four division chiefs seems heavy loaded for such a small department? My neighbor works for another department in the neighboring area with similar congestion issues, but he indication they no where near have that much. From what I can imagine that in itself is extremely costly.

Looks like Chuck is thinking of running for city council again. His fiscal responsibility would be a great addition, and taking on the big businesses that are ruining our city.

Peter,

What is your source for 50,000 employees at FB?

I believe they currently have around 7,000,

re FB count,

The Fire Chief recently had a meeting with FB and this # was mentioned in the conversation. FB at one time talked about a total employee count of 25,000 locally, but are now talking about zipping it up to 50,000 in 5-10 more years.

For more information, watch or listen to the MPFPD Board of Directors meeting video available on the Fire District's website for Tuesday, December 19, 2017 and then go to the Fire Chief's Report.