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Candidates to be interviewed for open Craig Council seat

Craig City Council candidate Brian MacKenzie emphasizes a point at the 2019 election forum.
File Photo

Editor’s note: This report has been corrected to reflect council will interview candidates at 6 p.m. Nov. 19 inside Craig’s City Hall.

Craig City Council is closer to finding a replacement for Brian MacKenzie after his resignation in the wake his arrest on several child sex-related felonies last month.

According to an arrest affidavit filed by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, Brian Paul MacKenzie was arrested on felony charges of internet luring of a child, internet sexual exploitation of a child, and criminal attempt — sexual assault on a child.



The arrest affidavit said MacKenzie was caught in the snare of an undercover sting operation Oct. 11 wherein a Jefferson County Sheriff’s investigator near Denver was posing as an underage girl.

At their regular meeting Tuesday, Mayor Jarrod Ogden suggested council move soon to whittle the city’s seven current applicants down “to a comfortable number of candidates.”



As long as the process was open to the public, City Attorney Sherman Romney though that was a good idea.

“Sure,” Romney said of Ogden’s paring down of candidates. “It needs to be a public process, an open process. You can’t go into executive session to appoint someone to council.”

Replacing a resigned councilman is not something the current council has deep experience with.

“This is uncharted territory,” Ogden said. “We don’t deal with this all the time.”

Though council considered interviewing only the best out of the seven, Councilman Tony Bohrer suggested all the candidates deserve to be heard.

“If there’s only seven, I think we should find an evening and interview them all,” Bohrer said.

Councilman Chris Nichols concurred.

“I agree with Tony,” Nichols said.

Bohrer soon made a motion.

“I make a motion that we bring all seven interested candidates in to have a conversation,” Bohrer said befor his motion was seconded by Councilman Steve Mazzuca.

The motion carried unanimously after a vote.

Because City Manager Peter Brixius said he might want to use the end of the interview day to accomplish work with council on the Yampa Building and marijuana, council agreed to schedule the MacKenzie replacement interviews for 6 p.m. Nov. 19 inside the council chamber at City Hall where council plans to live-stream the interviews for the public to see online.

Mayor Ogden encouraged the public to attend in person, too.

“The more public the better,” Ogden said of the interviews.

Ogden thanked all those who applied for MacKenzie’s open council seat.

“To all of you who did apply for council, thank you for showing up,” Ogden said.

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