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The Menlo Park Fire Protection District Board of Directors will be asked to appoint Mark Lorenzen as the next district’s next chief next week.
Lorenzen has nearly 31 years of dedicated service with the Ventura County Fire Department where he spent the last decade as chief. He is anticipated to begin his service as the Menlo Park district’s fire chief in early February 2022.
The district’s Board of Directors at its meeting Dec. 21 will also appoint an acting fire chief to serve until the arrival of Lorenzen since the current interim chief, Mike Shaffer, is scheduled to retire Dec. 30.
The Menlo Park Fire Protection District covers Menlo Park, East Palo Alto, Atherton and some unincorporated areas of San Mateo County.
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He has a great track record on innovation – which in the fire service is often difficult:
“During Lorenzen’s tenure, the Ventura County Air Unit — a joint operation of the county fire and sheriff’s departments — bought three surplus Blackhawk military helicopters that were converted to Firehawk helicopters for fighting wildfires. After the Thomas Fire, Lorenzen worked with legislators in Sacramento to help secure $25 million for technology infrastructure updates and to revamp the statewide system for ordering fire resources.”
Hopefully the Fire Board will encourage and embrace his ability to innovate.
Mr. Carpenter, I want you to run for the board, again. Your knowledge of the district is impeccable.
Anne – Thank you for the compliment.
After 16 years of service on the Fire Board I decided to “retire” in 2018. In 2020, at the urging of citizens such as yourself, I decide to run again and was soundly defeated. Clearly my time has passed.
Most of the voters are unaware of the current Fire Board’s great dysfunction. The current board is engaged in inappropriate micromanagement, has stymied the Fire District’s long history of innovation and lacks civility, decorum and wisdom.
Our Fire District is one of the best in the nation and most of the current directors are simply not up to the challenge of maintaining that excellence.
The Fire Board is desperately in need of new and younger directors. In my opinion only Robert Jones deserves to be reelected so there is a wonderful opportunity to elect two new directors in 2022.
I urge interested individuals to begin monitoring the Fire Board’s meetings and to build a base to run for one of the the three Fire Board seats that will be up for election on 2022.