In a joint meeting held March 5, the Menlo Park City Council and the Menlo Park Fire Protection District board discussed how the district and city can work together to improve emergency vehicle response times and community responses to large-scale emergencies.
Relations between the two agencies haven't always been so agreeable. Tensions escalated around October 2016 when the city refused to sell land near the Belle Haven fire station to the fire district.
And in adjacent Atherton, town officials began to discuss withdrawing from the fire district after it became evident that residents pay far more per capita for fire services than residents in the other jurisdictions the fire district covers, since the district is funded with property taxes. In January, officials from the town and the fire district agreed to form a subcommittee to discuss ways to resolve the issue.