Menlo Park City Department and Services

Police

The police department is responsible for providing safety, security and service for all members of the community by preserving the public peace, reducing the opportunity to commit crime and delivering a wide variety of police services. The police department works in partnership with the community toward the goals of protecting life and property, solving neighborhood problems and enhancing the quality of life in the city through neighborhood watch programs. The police department also provides citywide training for disaster preparedness, and enforcement and safety education for motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians. The police department is organized into three divisions: Investigations Division, Ad-ministration Division and the Patrol Division. Units within the department’s Divisions are the patrol, K-9, in-vestigations, narcotic enforcement, records, communications, SWAT, code enforcement, property, park-ing enforcement, training and ad-ministration units.

Public Works

The Public Works Department is responsible for the construction, repair, and maintenance of City streets, sidewalks, storm drains, curbs, trees, buildings and related facilities. The Department consists of the City’s Engineering, Transportation and Maintenance Divisions. The Department also provides private developments with engineering re-view to ensure that these projects are constructed according to City spec-ifications. The City’s Environmental Program is a part of the Public Works Department and promotes sus-tainable environmental practices and policies citywide.

Fire Protection District

The Menlo Park Fire Protection District provides “Excellence in Service” to the communities of Menlo Park, Atherton, East Palo Alto, and unincorporated areas of San Mateo County. The Menlo Park Fire District has grown to a district of 93,000 community members, served by seven fire stations within its district boundaries of approximately 29 square miles. The District’s Search and Rescue Programs have been developed and are known nationally. The Fire District is the sponsoring agency of the Urban Search and Rescue Team (Task Force 3) and the Swift Water Rescue Unit. Deployments include Northridge Earthquake, World Trade Center and recently Hurricane Katrina. The District is proactive in emergency preparedness, risk management, fire and life safety, offering varied community programs. The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) has trained over 400 residents in basic disaster skills. The District also offers GET READY classes for home preparedness and PET READY to educate for preparedness for pets.

Community Development

The Community Development Depart-ment provides planning, building, housing and redevelopment services. Planning services include conducting land use studies and application review for residential, commercial, and industrial development projects to ensure compliance with the City’s Zoning Ordinance and related policies. Building services include coordinating a “plan check” and “inspection” process that ensures that projects are de-signed and constructed according to applicable codes. The Department also provides a variety of housing services aimed at producing and preserving affordable housing opportunities for low and moderate-income residents and employees.

Community Services

The Community Services Department offers sports, recreational and cultural programs for children, teens, adults, and seniors to meet their physical, educational, and cultural needs and to enhance the Menlo Park quality of life. Services are available for all residents. Community Service facilities include 13 parks, community centers, a senior center, swimming pools, child care centers, gymnasiums and a skate park.

Libraries

The Menlo Park Library provides materials and services of popular interest to the community. From its two locations, one in the civic center campus and one located at the Belle Haven Elementary School, the library furnishes a full range of library services. The collection of over 158,000 items includes circulating books, reference materials in both printed and electronic formats, magazines, newspapers, online electronic books and a wide variety of sound and video/DVD recordings. The library has an active Friends of the Library group and a Library Foundation. Menlo Park Library is a member of the Peninsula Library System, a cooperative consortium of all public libraries in San Mateo County.