Guest Opinion: Concerns about Fire District Guest Opinion: Concerns about Fire District (October 26, 2005)

Union election efforts disturbing

Editor:

I am concerned about events that have taken place during the election of directors to the Menlo Park Fire Protection District.

The board was created to represent and protect the interests of citizens living within the district's jurisdiction who, through tax assessments, pay to support the district.

The labor group that represents the district's firefighters recently requested that one candidate, incumbent Peter Carpenter, withdraw from the campaign.

The same group is recommending three candidates, two retired firefighters and the third, a brother of a firefighter, be elected to your board. I have also noticed a total absence of endorsements of any candidates by any voters registered in the district.

All candidates are requested to trek to the firefighters union headquarters in the East Bay, where they are interviewed, to assess the union's choices. Their organization would prefer to control your board.

Presently, four of the five sitting board members have been blessed by the firefighters union.

Can we deduce that all one need do, in order to be elected, is to win the support of this labor group? They then will pay the bills for campaigning and provide manpower to canvass neighborhoods. Will these successful elected board members be indebted to their benefactors? I believe so.

Based on my 9 1/2 years service on this same board, including seven years as its president, I believe that citizens living in the district and supporting the district ought to fill all five seats. It would be preferable if they came without obligations to another group.

I urge voters to be thoughtful in their choices this election. Your pocketbook needs protection.

It is interesting to note that a very small percentage of the firefighters union members live in, or pay taxes in the district. But they would gladly control the board.

A. Erwin Ericksen

Euclid Avenue, Atherton

Voters should note lavish pension program

Editor:

Those voting to elect three new members of the Menlo Park Fire Protection District board should be keenly aware of the financial predicament the district faces in the coming years due to the lavish retirement/pension benefits the current board has conferred upon its firefighters.

The Almanac, in its Dec. 8, 2004 edition, provided a very bleak picture of the cutbacks in public services that ever-increasing public pensions are bound to cause. Relative to our own fire district, these benefits more commonly known as the "3 percent at 50" plan, allow firefighters to retire at age 50 with a benefit of potentially 90 percent of their highest salary.

Last year at the 11th hour the fire board, at the urging of exiting board member Del Kraus, voted to void the district's request for a new parcel tax. This parcel tax was proposed due to the rapidly rising retirement expenses that threatened to reduce the services provided by the district.

Having said that the three candidates, Ollie Brown, Rex Ianson and Scott C. Freiermuth, who are being promoted by the Menlo Park firefighters and ostensibly their union, all are either former firefighters or have close ties. It is hard to imagine that this group will exercise any fiscal restraint when it comes to firefighters pay and retirement benefits and their election to the board would be tantamount to having the "fox(es) guard the chicken coop."

Boards such as this one should be composed of citizens bringing an outside perspective and non-overlapping expertise. I urge voters to support candidates who bring variety to the board and who place the well-being of the community above the district worker's pension plan.

Michael Lambert

San Mateo Drive, Menlo Park

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