Posted by Peter Carpenter a resident of Menlo Park: Park Forest on May 2, 2020 at 5:58 pm "MP residents need to realize that the city staff has totally captured the elected City Council. The staff has de facto control of the Council agenda and nothing goes on the agenda that has not been vetted by the staff. Obviously in this arrangement the Council will only be given a very limited set of alternatives to consider. A test question is - Will the staff recommend outsourcing police services to the Sheriff as is done in both Portola Valley and Woodside? This would save millions of dollars annually and would also improve the level of service. And it would avoid future increases in the city's liability for police pensions. If not, then we know for sure that the Council is not in charge but rather is being led by the nose by the city staff ******************** Just as predicted - the staff is dealing with all of the nickel and dime issues and does NOT even discuss (much less recommend) the easiest way to save MILLIONS - contract for police services with the Sheriff: https://menlopark.org/DocumentCenter/View/25038/E1-20200512-CC-Program-and-service-reductions Note that the City spends over $22 MILLION on police services - twice per capita what other communities pay. Obviously protect the staff is more important than things like Belle Haven Child Care. Received on Tue May 12 2020 - 14:09:04 PDT