Letter: Atherton's own Robin Hood story — in reverse

I've been watching the ongoing battle between the town of Atherton and the fire sistrict for years. The issue seems to be not with the quality of service, which is considered excellent, but with the perceived amount of money residents pay in property taxes to the fire district vs. what is a wild guess by Atherton staff on what it costs to provide the service. What Atherton wants is some of those taxes being used in Menlo Park, East Palo Alto and the Fair Oaks area of San Mateo County to instead be redirected to them. You might call it "Reverse Robin Hood," whereby the poor pay more to the rich.

To determine whether the Atherton City Council is the only one that wants this, they are proposing to send out to every home in the town of Atherton a newsletter explaining their case. The problem is, the newsletter is biased; in fact, you might say it is one-sided, leading the reader to a conclusion the City Council is pushing for. It's like "leading the witness" or "talking to the choir." The newsletter, called the Athertonian, is one-sided, misleading, and void of a single word from the fire district or others knowledgeable about the bigger picture.

It appears the town staff and City Council are trying to create an issue that realistically doesn't exist. Call it another example of "fake news." Brow beating the residents on a non-issue is inappropriate. Even if the town won, residents would continue to pay exactly what they are currently paying in property taxes. However, out of that, the county could redistribute the funds to other public agencies, but not one penny would be returned to the residents. This is an important thing to know.

Bottom line, the newsletter should share both sides of the story, allowing the fire district to share their thoughts. Better yet, the whole issue should go away, as it appears there is no practical way to accomplish this, even if Atherton miraculously got a groundswell of support to move forward. There is no moving forward, as the options before them appear to be unfeasible at the local, county, regional and state level. From what I'm hearing, limited city resources should be used to address more practical and urgent issues.

Jim Lewis

Oak Grove Avenue, Menlo Park