NCFPD is apolitical

I encourage you to vote for North County Fire Protection District candidates Jeanette Barragan (District 1), John Van Doorn (District 4) and Mark Bartholomew (District 5). They are not incumbents, but they ought to be! They are supported by the Fallbrook Firefighters Association and a local conservative support group ‘Keep Fallbrook Free.”

My name is Ken Munson, and I have been an NCFPD director for 18 years. Frankly, I’m tired of 4-1 votes where I am the lone vote when very liberal community service issues arise and DEI becomes a core issue.

Like thousands of other Special Districts in California, the North County Fire Protection District (NCFPD) is legally a nonpartisan government entity. It is apolitical and not subject to governance by party politics one finds in incorporated towns and cities.

Instead, governance in Special Districts is expected to provide the best possible product to its constituency regardless of individual political leanings.

However, in the last four years, the Fallbrook Democratic Club has been making an aggressive outreach to control the NCFPD and where four of the five directors are now current or past officers of the local Democratic Club. This has led to an entrenched political bias, an imbalance in community representation, and where these four voted in a plan for the district to follow the operating principles of diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI).

A community group, Voces de Fallbrook, advocates the inclusion of DEI as operating principles in the NCFPD and denounces anyone who opposes DEI as not being willing to stand up for the community and moving forward. In a recent Instagram post, it even went so far as to accuse citizens who oppose DEI as retaining a legacy of white supremacy from KKK Klansman and White Aryan Resistance founder Tom Metzger who lived in Fallbrook for many years.

According to annual customer surveys sent to thousands of individuals using our services, the NCFPD provides the kind of service taxpayers want. In the last 25 years, the fire department has had simply outstanding chief officers – Bill Metcalf, Steve Abbott and Keith McReynolds, whose good strategic and financial planning kept the district at the front of operational emergency services in San Diego County. We remain there today!

NCFPD’s product is fire prevention, fire suppression, paramedic and EMT services to Fallbrook, Bonsall, and Rainbow, using the best equipment for use by employees who meet very stringent training and performance standards.

The district's senior management is made up of personnel with 25 or more years of fire department experience. The current chief has 30+ years with the department. The comments in this letter are my own and do not reflect any official position of the NCFPD. We have an excellent and very robust emergency services program here that serves all its citizens equally.

Ken Munson