Mountain View Fire Protection District posts unofficial election results

The unofficial results of the Mountain View Fire Protection District (MVFPD) May 6 election show Tiffany Heisler and Mike Mrla, both of Erie, receiving the most votes for the District's two available board of directors positions.

The District's firefighter union, the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 3214 also supported the candidacies of Heisler and Mrla.

The terms of current Board President, Laura McConnell, and Board Secretary, Cole Lathrop, will conclude this month. Heisler and Mrla will begin their four-year posts at the start of the June 17 MVFPD Board of Directors meeting.

The MVFPD is governed by a five-person board with each director serving a four-year term with a maximum of two terms.

The MVFPD covers the communities of Niwot, Mead, Dacono, Erie, Superior, Eldorado Springs, and other unincorporated portions of Boulder and Weld counties, including the Flagstaff community near Boulder.

Unofficial vote tallies announced by the District show Heisler receiving 4,120 votes, Mrla 4,103 votes, 3,398 votes for Cole Lathrop, and 2,860 votes for Mark Spangler.

A majority of voters also voted yes to the ballot question asking if MVFPD's firefighters should be covered by the Colorado Firefighter Safety Act.

With voter approval of the ballot question, Local 3214 has an expanded number of issues the union can negotiate with the District as prescribed under the legislative act passed in 2013.

6,181 voters voted "yes" to the collective bargaining ballot issue question, with 2,437 voters marking "no."

With the passage of the ballot issue concerning collective bargaining, Rick Tillery, the Public Information Officer for the Mountain Fire Protection District, said the District does not know what will happen next and added, "Legal doesn't know," as MVFPD is the first special district in the state to have voter approval of the Firefighter Safety Act.

Local 3214 is currently negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement with the District under governance established by a 2019 district resolution. Tillery said negotiations are at an impasse with representatives of the District and Local 3214 entering the arbitration phase with a selection of arbiters for a three-person panel.

Tillery said the May 6 election was the District's first election where MVFPD mailed ballots to all the District's voters. Over 60,000 ballots were mailed to residents. Prior elections involved in-person voting on the day of the election.