Menlo Park Priority Setting – March 18. 2023
Good Mayor, Council Members, City Manager and Police Chief,
I am Tom Prussing. I live at 194 Ravenswood Avenue.
The recent winter floods and the two windstorms with extended power outages should be enough impetus to place Menlo Park emergency and disaster response in the top three of city priorities for the coming year.
I recommend the following be immediately undertaking with urgency:
• A combined storms AAR for all three events to determine Menlo
Park strengths and weaknesses
• A joint meeting between the three Fire District municipalities, the
unincorporated areas of the district and MPFPD to include:
A council member and representative of the unincorporated
areas,
The municipal city manager and chief of police
The District Fire Chief Lorenzen and Division Chief Johnston
and MPFPD Board member
For the purpose of:
Establishing a standardized EOC operations network and
call-up protocols for the municipalities to communicate
the Fire District DOC in an emergency or disaster
Support for ADAPT, MPC Ready and rEPAct by the
municipalities and the Fire District
Establishing the following emergency and disaster
response training for our residents in conjunction with the
Fire District:
Individual and family emergency preparedness
Neighborhood emergency preparedness
CERT certification
DSW by the Fire District and municipal police
departments
Neighborhood emergency response
Emergency communications
Fire District sponsored Red Cross training
Traffic control certification taught by municipal police
departments
Atherton and Palo Alto have previously conducted
these certifications
A yearly Fire District DOC and municipal EOC exercise
to include selected city responders
A yearly municipal EOC exercise to include citizen
responders similar to the Atherton communication
drills
A yearly Community Emergency Drill in each
municipality similar to those conducted between 2016
and 2021 the last of which in Atherton has 152
citizen municipal and Fire District participants.
Most of these recommendations have already been documented and practiced so there is no need to reinvent a municipal citizen emergency response wheel.
Thank you, Tom.
