October 5, 2022
By Emily Mibach
Daily Post Staff Writer
With a new fire chief and an open seat on the board, the Menlo Park Fire District – which serves East Palo Alto, Menlo Park, North Fair Oaks, Atherton and West Menlo Park – has been making some charge There are four people running for three seats – incumbents Robert Jones of East Palo Alto and Chuck Bernstein of Menlo Park are seeking re-election.
Fellow incumbent Jim McLaughlin opted not to run again. Competing for his seat are Atherton resident Gary Bloom and East Palo Alto resident Dionis Papavramidis.
Jones says he has some unfinished business that he wants to get done on the board. His two primary goals are in creasing the diversity of the district’s workforce and better preparing the district’s disaster preparedness program.
The board over the summer received a presentation from Chief Mark Lorenzen, who broke down how far various job applicants got in the district’s hiring process. Jones noted that hardly any women, Latino, Asian or black candidates were interviewed.
Jones wants to take a closer look at the district’s hiring practices and find out why diverse candidates aren’t progressing further.
Bernstein says he is working on his long-time goals of making the district operate better from a finance and operations standpoint. That’s in part due to the new chief who is a CPA on top of a firefighter. This year was the first in Bernstein’s memory that the board reviewed a full budget and not a budget summary. Bernstein wants to continue this momentum and look at better ways to purchase the district’s equipment and perhaps hire non firefighters to manage the district’s fleet and its facilities.
Bloom’s experience Bloom is a retired tech executive who is familiar with the district, having worked as a program manager with the district’s Urban Search and Rescue unit from 2007-2008 and has long been a volunteer with the Sheriff’s Search and Rescue unit and as an EMT. Bloom said his number one priority if elected would be community preparedness. He wants the district to be well prepared if there is a major disaster given the ever-present risk of earthquakes and wildfires. Bloom is endorsed by the district’s firefighters union.
The Post spoke with Papavramidis in August, but he didn’t return a message for this story. He previously told the Post that he had moved to East Palo Alto about a year ago after living elsewhere in the Bay Area for about a decade.
He wants to give back to his community that he has grown to love.