Atherton: Repeated false alarms would bring fines

"False alarms wastes more than 900 hours a year in Atherton" Hahaha These cops don't do anything! If anything, responding to these false alarms is a good thing. It gets these well rested cops moving.

NO ANNUAL FEE OF $50. We've long been told the police department provides special services like FREE alarm monitoring and therefore don't worry about the huge amount of money they get.

This is an end run around the resident's decision not to renew the parcel tax. Instead of cutting spending to comply with this directive, the town council is looking for other ways to get this money back.

A fine for excessive false alarms seems reasonable. $400 seems very high. I really don't care since I've never had four false alarms in one year other than on the level of the council trying to reverse the parcel tax decision.

This alarm annual fee, if passed, is going to backfire and result in outsourcing the police dept once and for all.

Alarms:

Does the fire district charge for false alarms

NO!

What are the good citizens paying for? Outsource that police department......maybe Menlo Park should too...

Why do we have our own departments????? Charging for services already paid for in property taxes, low blow, to us taxpayers!!!

Consolidation of police services work!!!

To answer your question about why Atherton has its own department, people who have been on the town council have enjoyed a symbiotic patronage relationship with the police department for a long time. Even though some of these people have now left the council, they still are very influential in the town's affairs, e.g., head of the civic center committee.

For example, the Atherton police department used to run illegal police database background checks on men this person's daughter was dating. (To the Almanac: before you delete this, your own article you wrote about it is still online and searchable). The police union has also funded the candidacies of Elizabeth Lewis and Cary Wiest. Coincidentally, the two people who insist the most on the > $50M debt to build a new police department building (er, town center).

With all of the taxes Atherton residents pay, and how much of the town's budget this police department takes (almost all of it), it's a slap in the face to charge for alarm monitoring. For years and years and years, this was always advertised as one of the "concierge services" that is provided in return for (over) paying the police department.

The only difference now is the parcel tax failed. They need money to build the town center. What a town council that actually represented the residents instead of special interests would have concluded based on that parcel tax vote is the residents want lower spending.

Of course, the fire department analogy you bring up was a good one. If this was all about "rich people digging a tiny bit extra into their pockets" to pay for heroic public servants (the line we've been fed for so long), the town council would not be starting a war with the fire district.

By the way, it is much, much, much more likely that an Atherton resident is going to need the services of the fire district's EMT during their lifetime than be in a police emergency.

Note I don't excuse the massive salaries of the fire department either. I think it's gone too far. No further than the Atherton police department, and I would argue less since a fire is a fire, but police work in Atherton is obviously less dangerous, a lot less dangerous, than many of the surrounding communities so the argument we have to pay the same let alone MORE than the other communities does not hold true logically. I will say the town council has been complete hypocrites on the fire issue versus the police department here.

The town council will not consider police outsourcing even though it's obviously in the best interests of residents because of the political patronage.

"This is an end run around the resident's decision not to renew the parcel tax."


How true. This council will stop at nothing in its attempts to take other people's money. They have cost the taxpayers almost $100,000 in their misguided and unsuccessful attempt to steal tax revenues from the Fire District.