Board must approve official district response next month
The Menlo Park Fire Protection District board this week agreed with the district chief's suggestion to reject eight findings and three recommendations in a recent San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury report critical of the district, and also rejected a fourth recommendation from the report.
In doing so, it also agreed with the chief that the district should implement a number of recommended actions from the grand jury report, including developing a strategic plan and preparing an updated fire station location and land acquisition plan.
"We respectfully disagree" with some of the report's conclusions, Fire Chief Harold Schapelhouman said, "and we agree with far more than we disagree with."
Perhaps the most heartfelt arguments made against the grand jury report came when the fire board had already moved on to another item at its Aug. 21 meeting.
"It seems like we're defending ourselves instead of being allowed to celebrate the fact that we've done a good job," said Schapelhouman after cataloging how the district has hired 30 new employees, finished two new fire stations, bought multiple properties and put many new emergency response vehicles into service in the past four years.
"What most people would want to achieve in 30 years, we've just achieved in four," he said.
One of the report's main criticisms is that the district is doing all those things without a strategic plan to guide it, as much of the area it serves -- Menlo Park, East Palo Alto, Atherton and adjoining county areas -- rapidly grows.
"Yes," Schapelhouman said, "we don't have a strategic plan, but we'll get there."
Board member Peter Carpenter said he disagreed with the title of the report, "Menlo Park Fire Protection District: Ready for Growth?"
"It's unreasonable to say we should plan for growth over which we have no control," Carpenter said.
The board rejected more than 40 percent of the report's conclusions: four of 10 recommended actions and eight of 19 findings.
Fire board member Virginia Chang Kiraly was not at the meeting.
The process
The district has until Oct. 10 to respond to the report. If the district disagrees with any of the report's findings, or plans not to follow certain recommendations, it must explain why. The 2018-19 grand jury will review the district's responses.
Schapelhouman said he will return to the board with a draft of the responses for review and approval on Sept. 18.
The fire district must respond to each of the report's recommended actions with one of four options:
• Implement the recommended action with a timetable.
• Report how the recommended action has already been implemented.
• Further study a recommended action for up to six months before deciding whether to implement it.
• Explain why the recommended action "is not warranted or reasonable" and won't be implemented.
The board members unanimously agreed with all the chief's recommendations, but also asked Schapelhouman to reject one more recommended action regarding impact fees on new development.
Impact fees
That recommendation said if the district determines it necessary to charge impact fees on development "to fund District operations in future years," it should provide the jurisdictions the district serves enough information to convince them to implement those fees by the end of 2019.
"This (recommendation) assumes we have impact fees because we need the money," Carpenter said. "It's not true that we don't have the money," he said.
"Impact fees are trying to get developers to pay their own way," he said. "I don't think we should use the taxpayers' money to pay for Facebook."
The board also disagreed with the report's recommendation that it talk to officials in the jurisdictions it covers "to evaluate if impact fees on new development are necessary to adequately fund district operations in future years." The grand jury stipulated that this recommendation was to be implemented by the end of this year.
The board and chief also disagreed with a finding that because the district does not have "a strategic plan, associated financial analysis, and land acquisition plan," it "was unable to persuade" the jurisdictions it covers "to adopt impact fees on new residential and commercial developments."
Carpenter instead blamed Atherton City Manager George Rodericks and Menlo Park City Manager Alex McIntyre for derailing the fire district's attempts to impose impact fees. "These two individuals colluded to say we're not going to let the fire district do this," he said.
The law governing impact fees says they must be imposed by the jurisdictions the fire district serves and passed back to the district. The district gave up negotiating to get Menlo Park, Atherton, East Palo Alto and San Mateo County to adopt the fees after officials in the four jurisdictions started asking for more information about the district's need for the money.
Instead, the district has been negotiating directly with developers for payments, a practice the grand jury faulted.
Atherton home purchase
The chief and board disagreed with two findings concerning a report by consulting firm Citygate, approved by the fire board in February 2017. One finding said the Citygate report recommended the district look for a new location for its Atherton fire station before making a final decision on the location of the Atherton and North Fair Oaks stations.
Board members did not discuss the finding, but on page 13 the Citygate report says exactly what the grand jury finding says: "Before making final site decisions on Stations #3 (Atherton) and #5 (North Fair Oaks), Citygate recommends the District try to find an acceptable parcel to move Station #3."
The district also rejected the finding that "notwithstanding the Citygate recommendation" to move the station, the district purchased a home next door to the station "reportedly to eventually expand the station."
Instead of searching for a new site, months after approving the Citygate report the district bought a home next to the Atherton station for $4.6 million.
Carpenter said the Citygate report assumed "that we would never be able to expand Station 3." He said the district has made a conscious choice not to buy property that isn't on the market "as it will drive up the price."
"What we've done instead is said we'll be opportunistic," he said.
The Atherton property was listed for sale, and the district paid $300,000 over the asking price. The district's recent property purchase on Valparaiso Avenue in West Menlo Park was not listed and the district paid more than $1 million over what Zillow had estimated the property was worth. The district's realtor argued Zillow was wrong about the property value.
The acre of property the district recently purchased from St. Patrick's Seminary for $6.6 million was also not on the market.
Facebook 'donations'
Three other findings and a recommendation the district rejected have to do with payments made by Facebook to the district. The grand jury report says by soliciting or accepting donations from a business "subject to inspection and regulation" by district employees, the fire district "has created the possible appearance of favorable treatment or disparate application of rules or laws."
"This is a totally fallacious assumption," said Schapelhouman. "These are not donations."
The district's attorney, Tim Cremin, agreed. "Factually, they are not donations," he said. "The word donation is not in the agreement" the district reached with Facebook, he said.
So far, according to the district, Facebook has paid the fire district $689,250 in negotiated development or impact fees. Those fees are in addition to $746,000 in building permit, plan check and inspection fees paid by Facebook. Facebook also has an agreement to pay additional impact fees to the fire district with future development.
Facebook is also paying the district's full cost for a fire inspector and half the cost for a plan checker for at least two years. In return the agreement promises the fire district will provide inspections within 24 hours of request (including during off hours and days), one-week turnaround of minor tenant improvement plans and three-week turnaround of other plans.
The grand jury recommendation that the district should adopt a policy "not to pursue or accept donations from any private entity over which it exercises any official powers, such as building or plan inspection, or enforcement of any law or regulation" by the end of 2018 was also opposed by the board and the chief.
Schapelhouman told the board earlier in the meeting that the district is continuing to negotiate with Facebook and may "embed" a fire district employee to do emergency planning on the Facebook campus.
Accreditation
The final two findings and recommendation the district rejected concern accreditation. One says the district has not "progressed beyond the first phase of the accreditation process since 2011."
Fire board President Chuck Bernstein said he agreed with the statement, but he did not get any support from other board members.
"We have made progress, but we have not progressed beyond the first phase," he said.
The second finding says the district's "management and governance structure has not demonstrated the ability to balance ongoing emergency response responsibilities with administrative and planning functions" and that has proved an impediment "to completing a strategic plan and achieving accreditation."
"I adamantly disagree with this statement," Carpenter said. "We do it every day, we do it every month."
The district is currently working on an accreditation plan, but the board and chief disagreed with the recommendation that the district commit to completing the Commission on Fire Accreditation International accreditation process by the end of 2019, saying the process would take longer than that.
Agreed-upon actions
The grand jury actions that the district and Schapelhouman agreed with are:
• Develop a strategic plan that conforms to the standards set by the Center for Public Safety Excellence by June 30, 2019.
• Prepare an updated fire station location and land acquisition plan encompassing the entire district by June 30, 2019.
• Ensure its administrative functions operate effectively regardless of competing short-term priorities caused by emergency response operations, including the establishment of an ongoing management process to track progress and results of agency goals and objectives relating to general organizational and operational programs by June 30, 2019.
• Review the consultant recommendations relative to the location of the Atherton fire station and re-examine the basis for purchasing the Atherton property by June 30, 2019.
• Once accredited, annually budget sufficient funds to cover all costs associated with maintaining accreditation, including staff resources, training, and consultant services. Add maintenance of accreditation to the fire chief’s annual performance evaluation. All by June 30, 2020.
• Expand the district's website to include a description of special districts in general and the Menlo Park Fire Protection District in particular by June 30, 2019.
August 24, 2018
The Almanac
By Barbara Wood
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