Candidate for
Board Member; Lakeside Fire Protection District

Number 1 is cost: I have been on the Lakeside Board for 4 years now. The Board as a unit, has been able to keep the cost of the Department within budget, and operational at the same time. No job layoffs & have not had to go to the voters for more monies. We have cut down to the bare minimum, and we are still going strong. We partnered up with the Lakeside Redevelopment Agency, and they are going to put money back into the Fire Department to compensate for some of our revenue loss.

Number 2 is a good Chief: Although I was not on the Fire Board at the time of hiring Chief Baker, I feel that the Board chose an excellent individual. Chief Baker came into Lakeside with direction, one was to get a budget together for the long haul. It has been tough, but it is still working to this date. Another was to have our Department get back doing our own property inspections. This is bridging rifts that developed with the private company that was doing the inspections for us.

Number 3 is Labor: Labor is a key to keep everything together. Even though they would like to run the Department, they have been an instrumental part of the team that is making the Lakeside Fire Department survive hard times, and still provide the best Fire Service in the County. With labor helping watch the budget, they research equipment and apparatus for the Department.

I do agree with a regional fire agency, but not with mandatory membership. I worked with Orange County Fire in the 70's. It took years to get to its level of development back then, and 25 more years for it to evolve to where it is now. San Diego seems like they want to skip the needed growing stage, and go to Orange County's level in one year. Even if the County had all the money in the world, they still would not be able to make sound decisions in such a short period of time,

I was around in the early 70's, when the County had a fire department. They were in the infancy of building a department at that time. But the County elected not to support it, and it fell to the way side. In the early 90's, we the voters, elected to support Prop 172. This is a sales tax for emergency services of San Diego County, that included FIRE! Seeing that the County did not have a County Fire Department, the County gave all this tax money to the Sheriff, Probation, District Attorney, and who knows who else! Now they want more money for a Countywide Fire Agency ! The County has Prop. 172 money going everywhere but to Fire, that is not managing our money smartly.