Dear Orinda City Council: Speaking for myself and the other 125 Orinda residents who recently petitioned you to get involved in our safety by insuring that we get the emergency services we are paying MOFD to provide us, we are deeply disappointed in your continued unwillingness to act on our, and the other 18,000 Orindans you represent, behalf. Last Wednesday, as you know, the MOFD addressed the issue of spending Orinda tax dollars in Orinda and the Orinda Council was conspicuously absent at that meeting. The only member in attendance was Mayor / MOFD liaison / MOFD Board candidate Victoria Smith but she merely sat there as a mute stone; never rising to speak on behalf of Orinda. Conversely, Moraga sent its Vice Mayor to speak for the Town of Moraga and he told the Board that the status quo (Orinda subsidizing Moraga’s emergency services with $2.7 million) worked well for them and urged the Board to stay on that track. Which the MOFD Board decided to do. When the Orinda Council asked the voters to form MOFD to provide us with emergency services, they assured us that this would insure that Orinda tax dollars would be used for services in Orinda. Mayor Sarge Littlehale was quoted in the Voters’ Pamphlet: “We must never again let the County Supervisors spend $2.8 million of Orinda’s money elsewhere in the County, ignoring Orinda’s needs.” And yet, that is exactly where we are back to. 40 percent of our emergency responses take over the benchmark six minutes for responders to arrive. Three dozen fire hydrants designated “grossly inadequate” by the Orinda Fire Chief back in 1995 remain so. Hundreds of acres of North Orinda are designated a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone for which there should be a fuel reduction program but there is none because our emergency service dollars are being used in Moraga. And you, our City Council, fiddle while Orinda may burn. Your inaction is unconscionable. I do not understand what “drives” you to bury your collective head in the sand. If you think someone else is going to do your job for you; you are wrong. What is more important than the community’s safety? We cannot guarantee 100 percent safety but when $2.7 million, almost 20 percent of Orinda’s emergency services dollars, is spent outside of Orinda, it is obvious we are less safe than we could be. Speaking for the 126 people who presented you with the petition to get involved in our safety and the rest of Orinda also, I continue to urge you to get involved in our wellbeing. No one else, apparently, is going to do this for you. Steve Cohn