Advice right to bring fire cars back – Palo Alto Daily Post

By Braden Cartwright
Daily Post Staff Writer

Palo Alto's city council voted to bring a fire engine back to the train station in Mitchell Park, where the neighbors are afraid that slow response times will lead to a disaster.

“The LA fires remind you that every second really counts,” said city councilor Greer Stone on Monday before a 7-0 vote.

The Council added a fire service position and asked the city administrator Ed Shikada to present options for adding three positions in May so that the station could have an engine and an ambulance on the corner of East Meadow Drive and Middlefield Road.

In the meantime, the individual position enables three firefighters to take out an engine or an ambulance, but not at the same time.

The only position is filled with overtime of existing firefighters and not with a new setting, said Shikada.

The station will be rebuilt and will be opened in early 2027, and the goal is to have both an engine and an ambulance until then, said Chief Geo Blackshire.

Firefighters said that Manning was also ideal for an ambulance and a fire engine. You want the city to add full -time positions and do not prescribe overtime.

“We don't even talk about adding exotic resources,” said Joe Penko, President of the Firefighters. “The inactivity that we take on regularly is incredible for me. Do the right one. “

The city has six full -time firearms with a total of five engines, a driver's car and three ambulances around, said Blackshire.

The fire station 4 has been without a motor since July 2020 due to budget cuts from pandemic.

More and more residents have learned something about the absence in the past few weeks and a petition to bring the engine back, gained 542 signatures.

Around 100 inhabitants visited a community meeting in Mitchell Park Community Center on February 13th.

Blackshire reassured the residents that his department pursues a systemic, data -controlled approach, but the loudest applause of the night was for a firefighter in retirement who borrowed the city to put an engine at every station.

Motors are usually the first to respond to any kind of call, and ambulance are taken out of operation when they transport a patient to the hospital, said Blackshire.

An ambulance at the fire station 4 is used in 20% of cases, which means that a fire engine is around 80% of the cases available, said Blackshire.

The Council can make more changes during the budget discussions in May and June. But Shikada warned that the city projected a deficit.