In Facebook’s Hometown, the First Responders Aren’t Local

From the comments section:<p>Richard Rider 8 hours ago<p>Before you get all mushy about the Menlo Park firefighters with their pittance of a salary, go to this link to see how much these typical CA &quot;public servants&quot; are paid (and these are old figures that have since risen):<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;transparentcalifornia.com&#x2F;salaries&#x2F;menlo-park-fire-protection-district&#x2F;?page=1" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;transparentcalifornia.com&#x2F;salaries&#x2F;menlo-park-fire-pr...</a><p>Scroll through the 8 pages of employees. With benefits, the top guys make over $300K a year. Scores of these firefighters receive well over $100K in cash annually -- plus benefits, which includes a pension for 30 years&#x27; service that is usually HIGHER than their regular salary.<p>And remember this: 72% of America&#x27;s firefighters are VOLUNTEERS. In CA, we&#x27;ve all but outlawed volunteer fire departments in all but a few rural enclaves.<p>---<p>In global perspective these salaries are very high and it is probably also contributing to high house prices.<p>I don&#x27;t live in the US so I don&#x27;t really have any opinions on this but I suspect those getting the short end of the stick more likely are the people working in Starbucks than these guys.

The structure of the job makes it very unlikely firefighters will want to live on the peninsula. They spend the night at the station with multi-day shifts on and long stretches off so long commutes don&#x27;t grind them down the way they do daily commuters. It just makes sense to live out where you can afford a much more comfortable life.

Public workers are the last in the list of &quot;low income people who commute to Sillicon Valley for work&quot;. There are many many more people who earn much less than $140k working in Menlo Park. There is that sweet lady in Starbucks near Facebook that told me she has two sons or people who work in cleaning services. Those are the ones who deserve media attention first.

From the article: <i>&quot;Menlo Park fire district workers will earn an average $147,000 this year.&quot;</i>

Not limited to firefighters, Palo Alto is considering housing subsidies for families making between 150-250K: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;03&#x2F;22&#x2F;250k-per-year-salary-could-qualify-for-subsidized-housing-under-new-palo-alto-plan&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;03&#x2F;22&#x2F;250k-per-year-sa...</a>

just. build. more. housing. units.

This isn&#x27;t unique to Menlo Park either, oddly enough. I remember reading about some San Jose guys that lived in Idaho. But they managed to trade schedules around to where they were on duty for enough consecutive days that it worked out just fine.<p>We see that here in north Texas, although the salaries aren&#x27;t near as high. Often times we (I&#x27;m a firefighter&#x2F;paramedic, but work as a paramedic only for a 911 contract) will have some long commutes. And often times it&#x27;s because our family members work closer to home. I drive 150 miles each way to my job where we work 2 days on and 4 days off. it&#x27;s just over 2 hours each way. My other half is a high school teacher with a daughter in elementary school, so they&#x27;re close to home and I commute. It&#x27;s common in this line of work.

paywall

Public servants have a union to protect them.<p>Hold your pity until Facebook&#x27;s own programmers can&#x27;t afford to live in the area.<p>Meanwhile, Zuck buys up the surrounding houses for a &quot;buffer zone.&quot; How tone-deaf can you get?