John Gaccione

Date: 11/01/2021

Subject: The Obvious Solution

From: The Memo Desk

Longtime residents citing considerable familiarity with Kensington financial management sent a letter to the Outlook editor. The letter states they believe the Kensington fire district is embarking on a very costly and unnecessary remodel plan to convert the Public Safety Building to fire use only.

The undersigned estimated the PSB project overall cost including debt service on a bond would cost about $10 million. A bond would be needed because the KFPD has about $5 million in unrestricted cash for the remodel. The costly project would also force the KPPCSD to find new and expensive quarters for the police department. Costly, for sure.

Unnecessary? Only if you think the existing PSB being out of date, seismically unsafe, and not up to current accessibility codes is A-OK. Besides that, it is located within 50 feet of the Hayward fault. And the police and fire departments have said the proposed building plan doesn’t work for both departments and all their equipment requirements.

But alas, those who signed the letter have other larger concerns. Consider this from their letter; “We see no reason why three men need 2,800 SF of upstairs living space, which is larger than many Kensington homes.” Or this, “Nor do we need a large conference room downstairs…”.

Nothing says we don’t value the professional firefighters/EMTs more than minimizing the importance of the space they live in and work in. But perhaps the letter folks were only speaking as financial managers and didn’t consider the larger social implications of their remarks.

No, the obvious solution is not to keep the police in the PSB. The obvious solution is to take advantage of this opportunity to locate the police department in a seismically safer location. What sense does it make to keep first responders, the police and the firefighters/EMTs together on a major earthquake fault?

While we all realize change is a difficult concept for many Kensingtonians to process, the basic issue is how best to provide for future public safety. As we know, in the future our hillside community faces increased threats from wild fires, earthquakes and other potential emergencies.

Isn’t it a bit foolish to short change our public safety capabilities in order to keep both departments shoehorned into the PSB? Financial management may not be the whole enchilada.

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted”. (Albert Einstein)

Note: Satire alert disclaimer, past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.