BY ELAINE GOODMAN
Daily Post Correspondent
Menlo Park residents worried about home burglaries have asked the city to open a police substation in Sharon Heights.
But such a substation wouldn’t be worth the expense given current crime trends, Police Chief Dave Norris said in a report to City Council. There were 57 home burglaries in 2024 and 59 last year — more than one a week — which Norris called a stable trend. The numbers don’t include cases where only bicycles were stolen.
A spike in home burglaries in the city in January and February “caused understandable concern,” Norris said in the report, but the number of burglaries has since returned to “typical levels.”
Home burglaries are one topic council will discuss tomorrow during a study session on public safety priorities for the next fiscal year, which starts July 1. Council picked public safety as a top priority for the new fiscal year during a workshop in March.
For combatting home burglaries, Norris pointed to strategies that have “proven very fruitful,” including increased patrols, technology-aided strategies, and working with law enforcement in other jurisdictions. He also suggested neighborhood watch blocks, officer home inspections and the department’s security camera registry.
“Residential burglary remains a top priority, and the department will continue to address it with urgency, communication, and strong community partnership,” the report said.
License-plate cameras
Norris’ report to council said the city could consider expanding its automated license plate reader program. The police department launched the program last year with 32 out of 35 approved cameras.
Policies were tightened so agencies outside of California can’t access the data, and the system had “zero misuse” in 2025, Norris’ report said.
The plate readers have helped police with cases involving stolen vehicles, wanted persons, violent crime, drugs, retail theft and missing kids.
The department also has been trying out mobile closed-circuit television trailers in crime hot spots.
Drones are another technology the city might want to consider for the police department, Norris’ report said. Drones could be used in running search and rescue operations, gathering traffic collision information, or analyzing crimes in progress.
But the city would first have to look at issues such as privacy, security and training, the report said.
The department is also evaluating artificial intelligence tools to help in investigations.
In commenting on city priorities, residents also said they’re concerned about the time it takes for police officers to respond to calls. Average police response times, which were 18 to 19 minutes in 2022-23, grew to about 27 minutes last year.
Norris blamed the situation in part on the department’s practice of sending two officers to a call for safety reasons. When there are four officers on a shift, two calls at the same time can tie them up, potentially delaying the response to a third call.
The situation is expected to improve when more officers finish their training and can start work.
Code enforcement workload
At the same time, the workload for the department’s two civilian code enforcement officers is increasing. The officers, who handle issues such as noise complaints and building code violations, now must also respond to calls about the city’s zero-emission landscape equipment ordinance. The ordinance banned gas-powered leaf-blowers and string trimmers starting in July 2024. ZELE enforcement added 297 calls last year to the city’s 453 other code enforcement calls.
Menlo Park isn’t the only Mid-Peninsula city grappling with home burglaries.
Residents in the Menlo Oaks neighborhood of unincorporated San Mateo County said last year that they had spent more than $100,000 for private security guards and security cameras to address an increase in attempted burglaries. Residents said they weren’t getting an adequate response from the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office.
In Atherton, burglars smashed glass doors in attempted burglaries of three homes within a four-day period in October, just days after a community safety meeting about burglaries in town.
Overall crime is down
Norris noted a decrease in Menlo Park’s overall crime statistics. “Person crimes,” such as assault, rape, and human trafficking, dropped from 196 cases in 2022 to 157 cases in 2025. Property crimes fell from 936 to 804 over the same period.
Menlo Park’s person and property crime rates, adjusted for population, were both higher than the rates seen nationally from 2022 to 2024, according to Norris’ report. But the police chief said Menlo Park’s rates for property crime and violent crime were falling faster than those at the national level.
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