Martin, if you are truly upset about contributions in the last election, please know that you have been misinformed. Your previous posts on this issues are not accurate.

Menlo Gateway has nothing to do with Measure M nor our current city manager, it was approved --- by city vote --- several years ago. That doesn't make the traffic better, it is terrible on Marsh and will get worse. So we have to come up with solutions and especially funding. I use Marsh myself, and Willow, so know how bad they have become. Much, maybe 80%, of that traffic is 'through traffic', meaning cars which have to go through Menlo Park to get to their final destination. So while we can do much to limit our contribution, we still have to deal with the overwhelming traffic that's going to be in our community no matter what we do. Tragedy of the commons is what that's called, when we all nibble away without bounds at the shared commons which is our Peninsula roadway system.

Menlo Gateway is just one more example of where the City of Menlo Park, acting as the lead agency, conveniently forgot about the impact of this project on the Fire District. As lead agency the city is required by law to represent the interest of non-lead agencies - that did not happen. Instead the City Council insisted on more flowers at Menlo Gateway rather than a dime for fire services.

What Menlo Park evidently wants to do is have the Fire District reduce its service levels to Belle Haven in order to serve Menlo Gateway. As the recent fire in East Palo Alto shows that is playing a dangerous game with public safety. Fire engines from west of 101 had to use University Ave in Palo Alto to respond to the East Palo Alto fire.

@move on:

I am just using information I saw in the campaign finance reports available at the City's Clerk website.

If you are so sure about the numbers being wrong, please let the City Clerk know as soon as possible.

@ Peter Carpenter.

Thanks for adding that important detail about how Gateway's will negatively impact such an important service for residents of Belle Haven.

This motion is on the Fire Board's agenda on 20 Jan:

"The Fire District will not support and will oppose all actions regarding the proposed M2 upzoning until and unless the City of Menlo Park can provide binding guarantees that ensure the funding for the additional Fire District facilities, equipment and staffing necessary to provide for the expanded fire services to serve this additional demand.

The Fire District will not approve any new construction in the M 2 zone until and unless the City of Menlo Park can provide binding guarantees that ensure the funding for the additional Fire District facilities, equipment and staffing necessary to provide for the expanded fire services to serve this additional demand.

Until the City of Menlo Park can provide binding guarantees that ensure the funding for the additional Fire District facilities, equipment and staffing necessary to provide for the expanded fire services to serve the proposed new M 2 zoning any new construction approved in the M 2 zone by the City of Menlo Park should note that the Fire District is unable to ensure fire protection for such construction."

Hopefully Belle Haven residents whose fire protection the city wants to divert to the M 2 area will attend to express their concerns.

Here are more details from the Fire Chief on the response to the fire in East Palo Alto:

"The fire was at 2217 Pulgas Avenue in East Palo Alto on January 12, 2015



It was reported as a house fire and dispatched at 18.08 with Engine 2 (East Palo Alto) on-scene at 18.11 confirming they had a working fire with smoke coming from the front door and garage door. Engine 77 (East Menlo) arrived at 18.15 and backed up Engine 2 so they could make entry into the building to fight the fire per the OSHA 2 firefighters inside and 2 outside rule for safety and rescue. Great response times from our east side units but they can only do so much with 6 people on a fire because they need to fight the fire, provide a backup rescue team on standby, get a supply line from the hydrant, search and possibly rescue people then do advanced paramedic intervention, protect exposure structures, ventilate the building and conduct salvage if possible and everything goes right. That takes about 15 people to do it right, which is a first alarm assignment. When it goes wrong we call more alarms from further away and that takes even more time, that's why we strive to be there fast and hit a fire hard so it doesn't get away from us.



Engine 6 (Downtown Menlo) arrived at 18.19.13, they took University Avenue from Middlefield, so through Palo Alto, and beat Station 1 units (Middlefield Road) Engine, Truck and Battalion 1, who had radioed that they were stuck on Willow in grid lock traffic. E-1 arrived at 18.19.23, Truck at 18.20.09, Battalion Commander at 18.19.55.



Engine 5 (North Fairoaks) arrived at 18.20, so here is one of my points, traffic is dramatically affecting our response times at certain times of the day which has an impact on travel times, performance and safety. We strive to have all units on scene for a fire in 8 minutes (sooner if possible), for this fire it took 12 minutes. If something bad happens we may not have enough people on scene to either properly address it or keep it from getting worse and I worry about that.



Engine 5 went over the Marsh Road overpass, down Bayfront to University to the call and almost beat the Station 1 crews who are closer but used Willow Road. Engine 6, also further away, heard the station 1 crews were locked up on Willow and went through another jurisdiction, Palo Alto, which is not what I prefer they do, but they exercised good initiative and it worked to beat the Station 1 crews as well. I notified the Palo Alto Fire Chief and this will be a topic on our next meeting agenda.



Here's my point, Willow Roads design makes it hard to navigate and for people to move out of our way. We use traffic pre-emption but when traffic is grid-locked it doesn't help. We often go slowly against traffic to be able to move at all. Marsh and University through Palo Alto are better options at times because they are wider and have room for vehicles to yield to large pieces of emergency equipment but they are still heavily congested.. We realize all this traffic is a sign of a robust economy, that's great news for everyone, we also realize that Marsh, Willow and University are feeders to the Dumbarton Bridge and our east side residents are harder to serve and under served at certain times of the day depending upon traffic and the volume of calls for service we receive in those areas."

*******************
And here is my opinion:
In my opinion the City of Menlo Park continues to ignore the needs of its citizens for timely emergency response and the proposed M 2 up zoning, without providing for appropriate increases in emergency response resources and capabilities, is simply playing with lives.

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