Brighton leaving Ward 4 seat open

Councilors say to little time before November vote

BY SCOTT TAYLOR STAYLOR@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

e Brighton City Council will work through the rest of 2023 without a councilor on Ward 4, councilors agreed at their Feb. 7 meeting.

For City Councilor Matt Johnston, the timing of former Ward 4 Councilor and Mayor Pro-Tem Adam Cushing’s announcement the week before that he had moved out of his ward made replacing him di cult.

Councilors had the option of scheduling a special election to ll the seat or of seeking candidates for an appointment. Councilors agreed to take no action, leaving the seat open until the November election. Neither option made sense, Johnston said, because the newly seated Ward 4 councilor would only have to turn around seek election again, in the city’s regular Nov. 4 election.

“ e problem with appointing someone right now is de nitely because of the months it will take just to get the appointment done,” Johnston said. “We are down to a very small amount of months they will actually serve before they have to run for re-election. I think that’s troublesome.”

Councilors agreed. Ward 4 Councilor Peter Padilla said he knows of multiple Ward four residents who would be good ts for the council and he liked them all, making choosing di cult.

“People in my ward don’t want to go unrepresented for a long amount of time,” Padilla said. “But my challenges in doing an appointment become complicated. I am loathe to have government pick winners and losers. I don’t like rules and policies that favor one company, one set of people or one industry over another and I endeavor to not picked winners or losers when we can avoid it. I would be challenged to name somebody as the incumbent running in the November election.”

Councilor Ann Taddeo said she is aware of at least six considering a run for the Ward 4 seats.

“My rumor mill is I’m getting six people running for that, so that makes it even harder,” she said. “We might be a way to whittle it down to two or three, but in the end, unfortunately, I don’t think we’d be able to come to a consen- sus on any of the candidates.”

Four city council seats, one in each ward, are up for election this November, with new terms beginning in January 2024. Including the currently vacant Ward 4 seat, the seats of Tom Green in Ward 1, Mary Ellen Pollack in Ward 2 and Clint Blackhurst in Ward 3 all expire in January 2024. Blackhurst new Pro Tem Cushing’s move didn’t just leave a vacancy in Ward 4, but also in the mayor’s backup role, the Mayor Pro Tem. The pro tem fills in for Mayor Greg Mills to lead council meetings if he is absent.

Mills polled the councilors, asking each if they had any interest in job. Only Ward 3’s Blackhurst did, and councilors appointed him to the position unanimously.