Kennedy looks poised to fill NCFPD District 1 seat

Veteran Vista fire captain David Kennedy held a large lead over challenger Lee J. De Meo in the race to represent District 1 on the North County Fire Protection District Board of Directors as of 6 p.m. Friday, Nov. 6.

Kennedy had garnered 89.79% of the vote in the district, outdistancing De Meo by a total of 1,723 votes to 196.

San Diego County reported Friday that 305,000 ballots had yet to be processed throughout the county and planned to certify the election on Dec. 3.

Kennedy will likely join unopposed candidates Jeff Egkan in District 4 and Cindy Acosta in District 5 on the board of directors that saw the retirement of Ruth Harris, Bob Hoffman, and Fred Luevano.

De Meo, though he will likely fall short in this race, seems to be on track to join the Fallbrook Community Planning Group. He previously served as a trustee on the Fallbrook Union High School District Board of Trustees.

Kennedy said he was grateful to the community for giving him the ability to represent them.

"The support from the community and people around me, it's just, it's overwhelming," Kennedy said in a phone call. "It really feels nice.

"I'm going to be very aware of the community's needs by trying to put on at least quarterly meetings, as an open communal meeting, to ask how we're doing and what we can do to improve their services that they're getting."

He said he has some priorities when he joins the board.

"I would say the most important topics are going to be obviously service to the community and improving what we have throughout the North County Fire Protection District," Kennedy said. "It's a very, very good fire department that just needs a little bit of an upgrade on some of their outfitting and some of their stations. Some of them are kind of deteriorating, so we're gonna work really hard as a board to try to make these things happen.

"Then service to the people, there are different delivery models for the medic units coming to their door and for providing full safety personnel. Hopefully we can upgrade some of that stuff and get more people on the ground for the people in Fallbrook. It's a growing community and we've noticed an uptick in call volume."

He said he has talked to at least one of his new director members.

"I have spoken to Jeff (Egkan) and I have not spoken to Cindy (Acosta) yet, but I spent some time talking to Jeff. He's a highly intelligent, high-functioning guy and has a lot of experience working in capacities for organizations like this," he said. "And I think that with his assistance, we're going to be able to find a way to fund the department in needs that are needed such as facilities and whatnot with some of his background. I look forward to collaborating with him on that. That's a little out of my field.

"I know fire, I know what it takes to run a department and to serve the people. I don't really know a lot about the financial end of it. I'm going to learn a lot about how to be fiscally responsible but there has to be ways to augment funding for the department. I think that that's one of the leading issues that we're going to be working toward. It's going to kind of be 'hit the ground running,' so to speak, right out of the gate, trying to organize some thought and move forward for North County Fire Protection District."

Jeff Pack can be reached by email at [email protected].