Posted by Peter Carpenter, a resident of the Atherton: Lindenwood neighborhood, on Aug 27, 2011 at 9:12 am

First you give the police union the opportunity to reopen their current labor agreement and to offer big concessions.

If there is no reopening or no big concessions then you have the perfect excuse to look at alternatives.

This is a good strategy.

Posted by Menl Voter, a resident of the Menlo Park: other neighborhood, on Aug 27, 2011 at 9:47 am

Danielsen needs to look at outsourcing because he has a corrupt department. Labor concessions or not, unless the corrupt members of APD are dealt with the town will continue having to pay out millions in lawsuits.

Posted by Talking/consideration never bad, a resident of the Atherton: other neighborhood, on Aug 27, 2011 at 11:06 am

Shame on Peter Carpenter for defending a statement such as "it's a huge mistake to even talk about outsourcing."

People can have a reasonable opinion that it is a mistake to do the outsourcing, but now we can't even talk about it? Isn't this a democracy?

Combining government functions to reduce inefficiencies and costs is taking place all over California and the USA. We have nationwide budget problems and government needs to get smaller.

And in Atherton we can't even talk about it?

Ridiculous.

The same newspaper ran a related piece on some of the ridiculous calls the APD gets. As Menlo Voter has pointed out, APD has become a private security force that deals with lights in the sky that turn out to be a full moon. When a real issue arises, they can't/don't know how to deal with it since they aren't properly trained as real police officers. The amount of bad publicity they have gotten with numerous incidents over the past ten years far eclipses any other police department I have heard about in the Bay Area. It's really, really ridiculous.

Posted by Peter Carpenter, a resident of the Atherton: Lindenwood neighborhood, on Aug 27, 2011 at 11:41 am

"Shame on Peter Carpenter for defending a statement such as "it's a huge mistake to even talk about outsourcing."

Note that I neither defended the statement or even commented on the statement. Shame on Talking for posting lies.

Please stick to the facts.

Posted by Talking/consideration never bad, a resident of the Atherton: other neighborhood, on Aug 28, 2011 at 12:15 pm

I am sticking to the facts.

Subject of this thread: "It would be a huge mistake to talk about outsourcing the police department right now," City Manager John Danielson told The Daily News. "It's a very high level of service the police department provides."

Peter's response: "This is a good strategy."

Posted by Peter Carpenter, a resident of the Atherton: Lindenwood neighborhood, on Aug 28, 2011 at 12:59 pm

Talking takes three words from the dictionary and calls it a fact.

Both foolish and lying.

Posted by Peter Carpenter, a resident of the Atherton: Lindenwood neighborhood, on Aug 27, 2011 at 9:12 am

First you give the police union the opportunity to reopen their current labor agreement and to offer big concessions.

If there is no reopening or no big concessions then you have the perfect excuse to look at alternatives.

This is a good strategy.

Posted by John P Johns, a resident of another community, on Aug 30, 2011 at 8:36 am

It looks as though it's going to take a successful civil rights lawsuit against the Atherton Police Department for Atherton to change its ways.

Danielson knows that the Police can enter his home any day of the week and "find" just about anything. Danielson knows that the real power in town rests with the Police Chief, whomever that may be.

I speak with experience, on August 27, 2007 the Atherton Police Department raided my office under false pretenses. A police report on the incident was falsified. This report was falsified by a "golden boy" of the Atherton Police Department, a young man who was borne and raised in Atherton and some would say was being groomed for Chief himself.

After two internal affairs investigations, a chief was demoted. That's all. There have been no criminal charges filed by the District Attorney despite my having filed a criminal complaint and despite my having provided both the former Police Chief Mike Guerra and Chief Investigator John Warren documentary evidence of the crime.

During the past four years, Atherton has seen three police chiefs "retire". It has seen one of its officers convicted of falsifying a police report.

During each of these scandals, Atherton has steadfastly kept up appearances. Atherton it seems has an image it would like to maintain, rather than admit to a corrosive problem in its midst.

Now is the right time to talk about outsourcing. Not because outsourcing will save the Town money. This is but a secondary consideration. For even in these tough economic times, Athertonians have plenty of money.

The Town should talk about outsourcing to save its soul.

Danielson praises the department for providing "high-end" services like having keys to homes kept with dispatch. This is nonsense. All those who have placed their keys in the trust of Town hall have given the Police Department the authority to invade their homes without probable cause. What fools are they....

Athertonians should get rid of the police department to protect something that's even more important than money: individual liberty.

Atherton has a champion of civil liberties, of truth, justice and the American way. He doesn't change clothes in a phone book, nor does he bear any resemblance to Clark Kent.

Atherton's champion is one who appears more bookish and cerebral (some would even say nerdy) than athletic or heroic. Atherton's champion is Jon Buckheit.

The arena which Jon wages his war against corruption is the 9th Circut of the US federal court.

For all of Atherton's sake I hope and pray that Jon Buckheit prevails.

Posted by Menlo Voter, a resident of the Menlo Park: other neighborhood, on Sep 1, 2011 at 7:19 am

"It's a very high level of service the police department provides."

Most, if not all of these "services" could be provided by a private security firm. Picking up newspapers, watering lawns, taking in mail, monitoring alarms, etc. can all be done at far less cost than currently being paid.