Brainerd Council to accept applications for vacant position – Brainerd Dispatch

BRAINERD — The votes are counted and the winners are declared, but there is still one elected office up for grabs in Brainerd.

The final Brainerd City Council seat will be named, however.

After winning a four-year seat to represent Ward 3 in northeast Brainerd, current at-large council member Jeff Czeczok will vacate his at-large seat at the end of the year. The City Council is considering appointing someone to fill the final two years of Czeczok’s term.

Under state law, a vacancy on the city council must be filled by council appointment until an election is held. If there are more than two years left in the term, the city must call a special election after the appointment. If the term is less than two years, the city is not required to hold a special election, but it could still do so.

Council members agreed at their meeting on Monday, November 18 to accept applications for open positions. The application period will run from Tuesday November 19 to Friday December 30. Staff had initially recommended closing the application period on Dec. 6, allowing the board to conduct interviews and appoint a new member by the end of the year.

Czeczok, however, proposed leaving the application period open until Dec. 30 and waiting to interview candidates at the first meeting in January. Council member Gabe Johnson seconded the motion, saying he initially agreed to close the application period early, but then spoke with Czeczok and realized the value of allowing the newly elected council member, Tad Erickson, to also have a voice in the process. Erickson will take office on January 6, replacing Kara Terry representing Ward 1.

Council President Kelly Bevans said he supported the measure but questioned whether six days would be enough for the council to review the requests. Council member Mike O’Day said as long as the applications are included in the package before the Jan. 6 city council meeting, members should have time to review them.

Applications are available online at ci.brainerd.mn.us/ and at City Hall.

The last council vacancy occurred in 2022, when Dave Pritschet announced he would vacate his Ward 1 seat in July of that year. He was re-elected to the seat in 2020, leaving two years left on his term. Three candidates applied for the seat and the council appointed Jamie Bieser in June 2022. Since 2022 was already an election, the city placed a special two-year seat on the council on the ballot. All three candidates put their names on the ballot. Bieser fell to Kara Terry and Leonard Skillings in the August primary, and Terry was elected to the seat in November.

Before that, Mayor Ed Menk resigned in March 2020. Council members accepted the nominations and appointed Dave Badeaux, who was then a sitting council member, as mayor in April. Badeaux then ran unopposed for the seat in November. The council appointed Wayne Erickson to fill the remaining months of Badeaux’s Ward 3 council seat, which was already scheduled to appear on the ballot in the 2020 general election.

In 2019, Sue Hilgart resigned from her general seat. After accepting applications for the position, the board appointed Tad Erickson to the seat in September of that year. A special election for the remaining two years of the term was held in 2020, with Erickson running unopposed.

THERESA BOURKE can be contacted at

[email protected]

or 218-855-5860. Follow her on Twitter at

www.twitter.com/DispatchTheresa

.

THERESA BOURKE can be contacted at

[email protected]

or 218-855-5860. Follow her on Twitter at

www.twitter.com/DispatchTheresa

.

Theresa Bourke started working at the Dispatch in July 2018, covering Brainerd city government and area education, including Brainerd Public Schools and Central Lakes College.