Civil grand jury says fire district not ready for growth
The Menlo Park Fire Protection District does not have an adequate plan in place to serve the rapidly growing population within its boundaries, according to a new grand jury report.
The San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury, in a report released Thursday, said the fire district has not put strategies in place to meet the challenges of current and future commercial and residential growth in its service area.
The report pointed out that the fire district has not prepared a “forward looking financial analysis of projected revenues and expenses related to new development primarily in Menlo Park and East Palo Alto.” The fire district serves Menlo Park, East Palo Alto, Atherton and unincorporated areas of the county with a combined residential population of about 90,000.
The civil grand jury recommends that the fire district prepare a strategic plan and work with other government officials to ensure that the district has the sufficient funds to deal with “increasing demands for service.” It lists eight other recommendations, including completing the accreditation process through the Center for Public Safety Excellence, which it last performed successfully in 2011; preparing an updated fire station location and land-acquisition plan for the district; and adopting a policy not to pursue or accept donations from private entities in its coverage area.
Chuck Bernstein, president of the fire board, said it
will discuss the report’s findings and recommendations at its August meeting.
“I think there is something we can learn from this and we should learn from this,” Bernstein said Thursday. “It certainly warrants discussion.”
Bernstein said the board will hold a study session on the accreditation process at a special meeting July 28, which he said was planned before the report was released. Fire Chief Harold Schapelhouman said accreditation is rare for fire departments, citing a National Fire Protection Association report issued this month that said there are only 17 accredited fire departments in California.
The fire district doesn’t dispute the findings in the report, but does take issue with the report’s tone, calling it unfair. In particular, district officials bristle at $300,000 the district received from
Facebook in 2017 being referred to as donations.
“Accepting donations of cash, or soliciting impact fees directly from these businesses can create the appearance of favorable treatment or disparate application of rules and laws,” the
report said.
“Some of the vocabulary, I think, is potentially inaccurate,” Bernstein said. “It’s not as bad as calling them a bribe ... (but) they are not donations. They were in lieu of impact fees.”
The district sought the fees from Facebook after mutually discontinuing impact fee negotiations with Atherton and Menlo Park. The district uploaded all of its agreements with Facebook to the district website Thursday.
Schapelhouman went further in his assessment, calling out Menlo Park officials for approving the hiring of six additional police officers in 2017 specifically to offset growth attributed to Facebook’s expansion, but not agreeing to implement impact fees for the district to offset that same growth. Facebook plans to increase its workforce from 15,000 to 35,000 in the near future.
“We could have done a joint impact fee for a split of 60-40 or 50-50,” he said. “Instead, we had to do it alone. The city abandoned us at the altar.”
The grand jury report argues that the fire district needs to have strategic and financial plans in place before it can successfully negotiate impact fees from its local government partners. It said the district should have those plans in place by June 30, 2019. The district sought $12 million in fees to fund capital improvements, but negotiations hit an impasse when city leaders, citing district reserves of $70.5 million and increasing property tax revenue to the district, asked for an independent financial analysis.