Spending a Day in Each Department in the City
Fire Department (Belmont is a part of San Mateo Consolidated)
Although my own Thursday morning had been pretty quiet before I walked over to Belmont’s Firehouse 14 for my day with the Fire Department, the firefighters who started their shift at 8am had already been on three calls. “It’s really unpredictable when the calls come in, so you just have to always be ready,” said my guide, Deputy Chief Anthony Agresti. However, he did say that sometime you can predict the busiest time of day by the type of community that the Fire Station sits in. For example, bedroom-communities tend to have more calls during the day, and night calls tend to be health-related.
We spent a lot of time there with Captain Casey, and firefighters/hazmat XXXX, Chris and Lee. Firehouse 14 manages all Hazmat calls for the County of San Mateo. I got to see the specialized equipment and hear a description of how they combat emergencies that involve hazardous or toxic substances.
As we all chatted, I also learned that a number of firefighters from Belmont had gone down to the Palisades Fire to join forces with a number of other engines and officers from all over the state. “California is 30 years ahead of its time in terms of coordination — with wildfires and earthquakes and all the rest, we have to know how to work together,” Anthony said.
We then went to see Saul (working on his birthday) and Shar at the new repair shop for the San Mateo Consolidated Fire Department (the name of the organization that not only serves Belmont, but also San Mateo and Foster City.) It makes a huge cost and efficiency difference for us to be able to do our own repairs here and in house.
I learned that each Fire Engine is a custom vehicle built to the specifications of each department. A city like Belmont, for example, would need a smaller, more nimble fire engine to get up the hills and through narrow paths, but a place like Foster City — with no hills and no overhead wires — benefits more from a larger, higher vehicle with doors for equipment that open on both sides (in order to keep officers out of traffic in high volume areas).
The firefighters at Belmont’s other station, Station 15, led by Captain Kyle, took me on a short tour in which I got to ride in the front of the fire truck through a few streets in Belmont, and then I jumped in a smaller vehicle to check fire abatement on Waterdog Lake Trails.
3 bits of insider information: During a fire, the difference in heat between a floor and a ceiling is the difference between 400* and 1100* so get down and crawl. Also, if you see firefighters with silver on their collars, it means that they are Captains, and gold means Chiefs. Additionally, all fire fighters greet each other with this handshake-turns-hug thing, so be ready, but know that 2 pats on the back are the maximum allowed before it “gets weird.”
Public Works
Belmont has 81 miles of sewer under its 4.6 square miles of land. Using an inspection camera, the Belmont Public Works team was able to show me about 300 feet of one of those sewer mains. My guides were Brandon, our Public Works Services Manager, and Tim, Paul, and Jaime. With a combined 70 years of experience in Belmont, these were the perfect guys to explain how our regular upkeep schedule keeps our sewers in shape.
The team uses an awesome, powerful, weirdly-nozzled hose — appropriately called “The Warthog” — to clear out any debris that might block sewage flow. All the pipes in the city are cleared every two years. The Warthog lives on the Combo Truck — a very cool vehicle that can both suck out debris and power flush (pun intended) the sewer lines.
A camera on a different truck allows for full inspection of each of the lines every five years. The line I saw was pretty clear, but there were some cracks and roots that were going to need to be taken care of. Our sewer system is mostly old-school clay and so requires a lot of upkeep. Newer materials exist, and we are bit-by-bit replacing the sections of clay pipe that have failed.
Homeowner’s Sewer Laterals link into the main city lines, and we saw examples of homeowners doing it appropriately, as well as homeowners who just punched holes into the mains in order to link up. The problem with just punching a hole is that roots then get in and eventually block or destroy the pipe. (P.S. It’s a very good idea for homeowners to have their sewer laterals inspected, as they are responsible for them. If your lateral fails, you get poop in your yard and a giant bill, so better to just have it checked!)
As a bonus, Tim suggested I check out a “bubble up.” These are areas where our Storm Drain system actually sends storm water briefly back up on the street to flow on the outside road before it goes down into pipes again. Brandon said a lot of residents think that the sewers are failing when they see it, but really it is just part of our Storm Drain system. (Storm Water and Sewer Material flow in completely different pipes and use different systems, but folks often think it is all one.)
Our City is creating new Master Plans for both Sewer and Storm Water to make sure that we are matching the evolving demands of population growth and climate change. Keep an eye out on our Agenda page on Belmont.gov to find when we are next seeing them in Council!
Finance Department
As a Councilmember, I love helping set direction on where each department focuses its resources, but I also want to know how they are deploying those resources once the plan is in motion.
The Finance Department is a good example of knowing “what” but wanting to know “how.” Our Council considers large expenditures regularly (like “yes, we approve $500,000 to design basins to store storm water during flood”), and we see reports monthly/quarterly on how it has been spent, but the process of exactly how smaller numbers — like salaries, for example — are managed was more of a mystery to me.
So, for my day in Finance, I met with Annie, our Payroll Technician, and Larry, our Payroll Manager. They walked me through the entire payroll process — an extraordinarily intricate endeavor that requires Annie’s powers of scrutiny to be combined with Larry’s enthusiasm for efficient processes. City employees are a complicated group to pay. We have employees from 3 different unions (all with their own agreements around wages and increases), an organization that has lots of non-prior-scheduled overtime/weekend hours (think police activity or emergency sewer clean ups), AND there are fed/state government rules (like retirement stuff) that govern what cities can offer/do. It’s a complicated nexus — and since it’s your tax money, it’s important to get it done right.
As I sat in and observed the process, it looked like there were lots of checks and balances — pun intended — to make sure every employee was getting the correct amount of money and benefits. The payroll process (a two-week cycle) begins when hourly employees submit their hours (including any sick, vacation, comp time, etc) for manager approval. After that, Annie approves the hours (checking for anomalies first), and then Larry checks the work. Next, all the deductions (like union dues, taxes, deferred compensation, etc) are documented and pulled out. Finally, everything is sent to our payroll systems company (ADP), and the pay is then sent out to the expectant employees.
If you are curious what employees get paid, the City of Belmont (as a public entity) publishes all of that information. You can find it all on our Belmont website - in HR under Employee Salary Schedule. I will say, though, that I do think the Payroll folks definitely earn their checks :)
Community Development Department — Building and Planning
For my day in the Development Department, I had a chance to learn about the workings of the Permit Center, both during their office hours at City Hall and by driving out to on-site home inspections.
Permit Technician, Cathy, and Office Assistant, Millie, work together at the Permit Center to address the needs of the public who show up, call, email, and electronically submit applications and materials each day. Cathy has been in construction professions on and off for the past 30 years, bringing a wealth of experience in both day-to-day construction activities and process oversight. She’s got a remarkable memory — at one point, greeting someone by name and then following up on their last conversation without having to check notes. Millie’s a natural extrovert as she provides information and connects residents to the right people.
(Something I learned at the Permit Center is that Belmont’s water heater, electrical panel, and furnace permits are only around $250 each. If your contractor quotes you a higher number, it’s because they are charging for their time to facilitate the permits.)
While I was there, Dino, Belmont’s Building Official, was present to answer structural questions, as well as to deal with escalated complaints. “On a good day, a building inspector’s job is a tough job. You can get a bad reputation for being grouchy or pushy when you are just trying to enforce the rules, but you can also get a good reputation when you work with people to get to a solution. It’s a balance,” Dino said.
Our first on-the-road inspection was pleasant, and the contractor agreed with the fixes Dino asked for. One fix was to change the type of small connector pipe that linked their gas stove to the main line. When I asked why that was important enough to mention (and then come back and check for), he replied that if the family went to pull out the stove to reach behind it, the current type of connector that was on there could have easily been damaged, causing a gas leak in a hidden spot of the house.
Reflecting on the weight of the responsibility to sign off on items of significant health and safety like that, he said, “You take this stuff home with you at night; like, did I do that beam right? Did I manage that panel? It’s impossible to not bring it home for the first few years. Even after 18 years at this, I still brought it home last night.”
The second home inspection was tricky — I found it hard to decipher the truth of the situation from the parties involved. For the third inspection, we checked on a lovely, older woman who kept offering us chocolate. I was glad we were there to make sure everything was set up correctly for her. Permitting and inspections can feel like a lot of hoops for the homeowner to jump through (from my own experience!), so it was interesting to see the other side of it and gain an understanding of the “why.”
Parks Department
I chose a hectic Wednesday morning in the Parks Department. The water main at the Sports Complex had just broken. This meant that staff had to do all the day’s regular, planned maintenance while still dealing with the unexpected emergency. This seems to be a recurring theme for Parks — long term projects and maintenance need to be balanced with the immediate needs that pop up, well, immediately.
Happily, though, in addition to planned maintenance and emergency fixes, there are also cool ideas that blossom (pun intended) into new, creative improvement projects. “There’s super great energy in the department. Our manager, Matt, is always open to new ideas. He‘s ok’d a bunch of the improvement projects that I’ve suggested.” That was my host for the day, JJ, Senior Parks and Facilities Worker.
We were chatting as he showed me the most recent project — beautifying the area around the Twin Pines Lodge with volunteer help from students and families from Crystal Springs Uplands School. We were there to see how the newly planted flowers were doing. “See this one is healthy, but this one is stressed, because it isn’t getting enough water,” he said as he adjusted the irrigation to get more water to the struggling plant. (See pictures below.)
JJ gets the cycle of planting — even on his own time, he grows hot peppers and makes his own hot sauce.
JJ mentions that there is a cycle to the maintenance of our parks, too. In spring, things are blooming and seasonal grasses are popping up. All irrigation turns back on and anything damaged from winter’s harshness needs to be repaired. In the summer, the amount of water has to be carefully adjusted for heat changes, and staff has to be ready for the additional field maintenance required as youth sports strongly increase the use and wear on the fields. Getting “fuel reduction” (dry grasses that are potential fire hazards) down prior to July 4 is important, too. The season of fall is “leaves, leaves, leaves,” as you may guess, and winter sees Belmont’s Parks staff clearing drains and dealing with the falling Eucalyptus trees that don’t deal well with large influxes of water. (One almost fell on JJ’s head a few winters ago, but fell on his truck instead.)
Outside of that maintenance cycle are the large-scale, one-time improvement projects that we (on City Council) want completed for our community. JJ and I checked out the progress of one of those big projects — the Twin Pines Creek Restoration Project — and it’s looking good. The goal of the project is to shore up the sides of the Creek and to create an ideal flow of water. In combination with the coming Twin Pines Detention Basin Project, both the highlands and the lowlands should be in good shape for any coming winter floods here in Belmont.
Community Affairs and Constituent Services
Both our City Clerk’s Office and our Community Affairs Office are crucial in a city’s interaction with its residents. Both report into the City Manager, and, besides us Councilmembers, they are the outward face of our city government.
I started with Elizabeth, our Communications and Community Affairs Officer, who handles or helps with literally every public-facing communication that Belmont sends out. One of her ongoing projects — and one of our city’s best tools for keeping our residents up to date on all the happenings in the city — are the Weekly e-News Newsletters that get sent directly to the inbox of anyone who requests it: https://www.belmont.gov/departments/city-news/e-notification-sign-up
She creates these by keeping extensive track of all our city events in a very involved, color-coded calendar. She then creates press releases, posts social media across various platforms, takes the photographs, talks to the press, and manages and streamlines all of the branding and communications for each of the city’s departments. Her favorite project is creating the monthly Belmont Business Spotlights (http://www.belmont.gov/bizspotlight) because she loves to “get to know our community members and shine a spotlight on the incredible work they are doing in Belmont.”
Next, I walked 50 feet to the City Clerk’s Office. This Office coordinates closely with both the Community Affairs Office and the members of City Council. All agendas, records, and meeting topic coordination comes out of the City Clerk’s Office. Jozi, our City Clerk (recently certified as a Master City Clerk) and Mara, our Deputy City Clerk, talked with me about the responsibilities of their jobs as both a public-facing and internal-facing office. They are truly the go-between. Fulfilling Public Records Requests is a good example of this. When the press — or anyone — want access to public files like meeting records, budget spending by a specific department, or public lawsuits, this office spends hours complying with the request. This helps to make sure our city government is transparent. See all our transparency here: https://www.belmont.gov/our-city/government-transparency
With the Belmont.gov website revamping happening right now, Jozi and Mara are intent on making the City Council Meeting Agendas and Records easier to find, understand, and access. Jozi and Mara seem to really enjoy working together and function as a good team — voicing appreciation for one another and showing a desire to share both the workload and their expertise with each other.
Police Department
My evening at the Police Department began by sitting in on the pre-shift briefing. I learned about the routine things that happen at those briefings each night — checking and documenting body cams, double-checking car numbers and shotgun numbers, as well as verbal confirmation from each officer that they had completed their daily training review question. Assignments were then given — including assigning me to Officer Sekope — and before I knew it, we took off in the police SUV for his evening shift.
Officer Sekope was a good ambassador, explaining everything and sharing his experiences. In action, I saw Officer Sekope enforcing the law clearly, while acting with kindness and understanding.
We went to two resident-reported traffic and speeding hotspots, and, within 3-5 minutes of arriving at each, we found people blowing stop signs and speeding. At first I felt a little bad being in the car while the drivers were getting ticketed. But then, while Officer Sekope was giving one of the tickets, I saw a family pushing a stroller through the crosswalk of the stop sign that the driver had just sped through. They were wearing dark clothes and could have been easily hit. I didn’t feel guilty after that — I felt like we were being of service to that family in particular. I also felt appreciative of the resident tips that allowed us to be in the right place at the right time.
Officer Sekope said the hardest calls are crimes involving children, but most calls in Belmont are around theft, wellness checks, and domestic abuse. Traffic related police interactions are always the majority, as I saw that night.
The officers work 12 hour shifts. For Officer Sekope, this works with his schedule as a dad of a toddler and an infant. His wife works during the day, and he works at night, so his girls are always covered. He’s been working a lot of overtime due to a short term staffing shortage, but wasn’t complaining.
I learned that staffing shortages at police departments are common right now due to the high cost of living here. Small, well-respected departments like ours that have an emphasis in training often see young officers come for the training for a few years and then move to a station closer to home. That can be frustrating, but luckily our police department has a good chunk of dedicated, long term officers that create a steady base for us.
Recreation Department
Not yet written