Long and Geddes win fire commission seats

By Oakley Brooks

In a tight Saratoga Fire Commission election, Joe Long and Jay Geddes captured the two open commission seats yesterday, fighting off a challenge from Firefighters and Citizens Task force members Barry Ford and Dave Dolloff.

According to an uncertified tally of all precincts, Long, a local real estate agent and on-call firefighter, grabbed 29.8 percent of the vote Tuesday.

Geddes, the only incumbent running, narrowly defeated Ford, a former San Jose City firefighter, by 49 votes, 24.9 percent to 23.6 percent.

Dolloff, the chairman of the task force, finished fourth with 21.8 percent of the vote.

Voter turnout was low, as expected in an odd-year election. Just 2,027 of the Saratoga Fire District's 7,823 registered voters, or 25.9 percent, cast ballots at the polls or by the absentee process.

Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters officials said they hoped to certify the election by Thanksgiving.

But this morning all candidates had accepted the election's apparent outcome.

Both Fire Commission Chairman Bob Egan and Fire Chief Ernie Kraule expressed satisfaction at the selection of Long and Geddes.

"It's encouraging," Kraule said. "We don't have to go through a tremendous re-organization."

Saratoga Mayor John Mehaffey said the choice of Long, the son of a fire commissioner who had insisted the election wasn't "about change", and Geddes, a commissioner since 1991, indicated voters were happy with the way the commission has been running the district.

The defeat of Ford and Dolloff ends a campaign in which the two had been sharply critical of the fire district and urged reform of the commission.

Mehaffey said he would like the commission to consider Ford and Dolloff's campaign proposal that the district be more open to public involvement and hold meetings at more accessible evening hours.

Long said that voters swung their support behind him based on his pledge to quickly build a new fire station and maintain local control of the fire district.

Long suggested during the campaign that, if elected, Ford and Dolloff might push for a contract between the district and the surrounding Santa Clara County Fire Department.

On the subject of the new Village public safety center, which might incorporate fire facilities, Mehaffey said that the selection of Long and Geddes was not a referendum against the center.

In their campaigns, Long and Geddes had pushed for a fire station to be built independent of the development and construction of a public safety center. They have said that a new station could be incorporated into a safety center after the station is built. But after his election, Long said he wished to sit down with the city and settle its differences with the district administration on the future station.

Saratoga Union President Capt. Bill Morrison said he was disappointed by the outcome of the election. Both the local and county chapters of the International Association of Firefighters had thrown their support behind Dolloff and Ford.

"I'm sad we didn't get our message out to more people," Morrison said.

Both Morrison and Dolloff said the task force would continue to push district administration toward a more productive dialogue with Saratoga firefighters.

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