"On Tuesday, February 18, starting at 7 pm, the Fire Board will hold its next regularly scheduled meeting at its Atherton Fire Station 3, located at 32 Almendral Avenue. Residents and members of the Community are encouraged to attend the meeting. On the agenda, the highly controversial issue of the Town Council of Atherton advertising that it wants to hear from “its residents” about not only the cost and quality of Fire Services, but also actually attempting to separate from the Fire District. Fire Chief Schapelhouman said, “the Fire Board and I look forward to hearing from our residents as to their satisfaction, or concerns, regarding the quality of our emergency services, the management of the agency, budget, and vision for the future. Bottom line, we wanted to give our residents and customers an opportunity to meet and here from the real Fire Board and Fire Chief. The Fire Districts five member Board is duly elected by the entire community that we serve, to manage those critical fire and emergency services”. President Jones is also the new Board Liaison to Atherton, and he, like the other Board members, want to know not only what this “threat” of separation means, but specifically what it would mean to providing essential emergency services to the rest of the Fire District, all of whom could dramatically be impacted by such a decision, if the Atherton Town Council moves forward. That’s why they have invited the County’s expert on such matters to the meeting. Already, a small but growing number of concerned residents want to know how the Town of Atherton’s alleged “equity grievance” would affect them. In January, as word spread at the Boards meeting in East Palo Alto, where over 30,000 of the 100,000 people protected by Fire District live, there was both surprise and concern. The City of East Palo Alto’s residents, many who work in Atherton, daily face dramatically different issues like overcrowding, soaring rent and living costs. The socio-economic challenges and realities are very much different than the Town of Atherton, which for the third year in a row has topped the list of “most expensive” homes in America. The realization and word that this could dramatically affect other less fortunate areas of the Fire District, like East Palo Alto, Belle Haven (Menlo Park) and unincorporated (County) North Fair Oaks, has only just started to be understood and discussed!” As the elected officials representing the non-Atherton residents of the Fire District you need to speak out against this selfish attempt by the Atherton Town Council to steal property tax revenues from your constituents and thereby reduce the level of fire and emergency services provided by the Fire District to your constituents. Peter Carpenter Former Director MPFPD 2002-2018 Former President Atherton Civic Interest League Former Atherton Resident Current Menlo Park resident Received on Sun Feb 09 2020 - 08:58:51 PST
