{"id":42864,"date":"2022-01-06T01:56:55","date_gmt":"2022-01-06T01:56:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/four-positions-open-on-cortez-city-council\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T09:09:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:09:49","slug":"four-positions-open-on-cortez-city-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/four-positions-open-on-cortez-city-council\/","title":{"rendered":"Four positions open on Cortez City Council"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Some
Some Cortez City Council members will return for in-person meetings at City Hall.<\/span>The Journal file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Four positions are open on the Cortez City Council, and the city clerk is accepting candidate applications until 5 p.m. Jan. 24.<\/p>\n

The municipal election is slated for April 5, and the newly elected officials will assume their positions on April 26.<\/p>\n

Three four-year terms and one two-year term are open.<\/p>\n

Vacating their positions are Mayor Mike Lavey, who was elected in 2018; Orly Lucero, who has served two four-year terms beginning in 2014; Robert Dobry, who was appointed in October 2020 to replace the late Sue Betts; and Matthew Keefauver, who was appointed in June 2021 to replace Amy Huckins, who resigned.<\/p>\n

Councilors Rachel Medina, David Rainey and Arlina Yazzie remain in their positions with two years left.<\/p>\n

The three candidates with the most votes will be elected for four years, and the candidate receiving the next highest amount of votes will serve for two years.<\/p>\n

The council will choose the mayor and mayor pro tem April 26.<\/p>\n

The 2020 race was one of the most competitive in memory, with 14 candidates running for five seats.<\/p>\n

That election saw a 35% voter turnout, with 1,725 ballots returned.<\/p>\n

To be eligible to serve as a councilor, candidates must be at least 21 years old, a registered elector and a Cortez resident of at least one year prior to April 5.<\/p>\n

Those interested may pick up and drop off petitions and certificate of nomination forms at the Cortez City Clerk\u2019s office at 123 Roger Smith Ave. between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.<\/p>\n

Nomination petition signers must be 18 years old, registered to vote and list their Cortez address. Signers can only sign up to four petitions.<\/p>\n

Council meetings take place the second and fourth Tuesday of each month at 7:30 p.m.<\/p>\n

The mayor receives $500 per month, and councilors receive $400.<\/p>\n

Voters must be at least 18 years old, a citizen of the United States, a resident of the municipality and a Colorado resident for at least 22 days preceding the election.<\/p>\n

Further information and questions about voter eligibility should be directed to Cortez City Cler<\/a>k Linda Smith, 970-564-4008.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Applications opened Tuesday ahead of April election <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,28,167,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-42864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-local-news-lead","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42864","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=42864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85482,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42864\/revisions\/85482"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42864"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=42864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}