{"id":15766,"date":"2025-11-06T17:55:24","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T00:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/brett-likes-announces-montezuma-county-commissioner-run\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:50:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:50:33","slug":"brett-likes-announces-montezuma-county-commissioner-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/brett-likes-announces-montezuma-county-commissioner-run\/","title":{"rendered":"Brett Likes announces Montezuma County Commissioner run"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Brett
Brett Likes, a lifelong Montezuma County resident, announced Thursday his candidacy for the District 1 County Commission seat in advance of the November 2026 election. (Benjamin Rubin\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

A former Road and Bridge Department foreman announced his candidacy Thursday for the Montezuma County Board of County Commissioners.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want what\u2019s best for the Montezuma taxpaying citizens, really I do,\u201d Brett Likes said during the meeting. \u201cBecause I love it here. This is a great place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Likes, speaking before the Montezuma County Republicans, said he will seek the District 1 seat currently held by Jim Candelaria.<\/p>\n

Candelaria\u2019s two-term limit ends in November 2026. He was elected in 2018<\/a>, and reelected in 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The other two commissioners will continue serving their terms.<\/p>\n

District 2 Commissioner Kent Lindsay was reelected in 2024 <\/a>after a 2020 term, having served from 1997 to 2005. District 3 Commissioner Gerald Koppenhafer was elected in 2024 <\/a>after serving two terms from 2004 to 2012.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen different commissioners come and go,\u201d Likes said.<\/p>\n

Likes said he was born and raised in Montezuma County. He has worked for the county Road and Bridge Department for 35 years.<\/p>\n

He ended his role there as foreman in August and now works for D&L Construction in Cortez.<\/p>\n

Likes said he would hold no conflicts of interest if elected.<\/p>\n

\u201cCould you elaborate just a little bit on what you\u2019ve seen working for the county in Road and Bridge that has maybe caused some of the concern on your part?\u201d asked Naomi Riess, a Republican candidate running<\/a> for Colorado House District 59.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way our money is spent,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s a big one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Likes acknowledged that certain spending falls under state mandates. Still, he described some county spending as \u201cunnecessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Valerie Maez, secretary of the Republican Women of Montezuma County, said her group was looking for another candidate who might be fitting for the BOCC role, given Commissioner Candelaria\u2019s term limit.<\/p>\n

She said the Republican Women heard Likes might be interested in running and invited him to speak at their luncheon months ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was consensus among the group that heard him speak that we liked what he said, and barring somebody else, sure, why not?\u201d Maez said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy personal opinion is that he\u2019s a very honest person and we value that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Maez said that the bylaws of her group prohibit executive officers from formally endorsing a particular candidate.<\/p>\n

After announcing his candidacy in the Cortez Chamber of Commerce, Likes stepped aside to answer a few questions for The Journal.<\/em><\/p>\n

Likes said he was not yet ready to dive into specific issues fueling his anticipated campaign. He said his primary goal was to introduce himself to the public.<\/p>\n

But he reiterated that his main goal would be \u201cmaking the best use that we can of our tax dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about political leaders or historical figures who inspired him, Likes mentioned Ronald Reagan.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd right now, President Donald Trump is doing a fine job as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Likes said he plans to register his candidacy with the Colorado Secretary of State in about three days.<\/p>\n

This article was updated on the evening of Nov. 8 to include comments from Valerie Maez, secretary of the Republican Women of Montezuma County. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

run for November 2026 election eyeing the seat held by current Commissioner Jim Candelaria<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15766"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19831,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15766\/revisions\/19831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15766"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}