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New Silt trustee hopes to continue beautification work in town

Ryan Hoffman
rhoffman@citizentelegram.com
Justin Brintnall

SILT — No one particular issue  drove Justin Brintnall to throw his name in the hat for a position on the Board of Trustees.

Rather, the father of three who worked for Dollar General and now works at Dish Network said he wanted to be a part of what he described as the town’s current positive trajectory.

“There’s nothing that I was like ‘I want to fix this.’ It was just more continuing (the work of the current board),” he said after Monday’s trustee meeting.



Brintnall, who was tapped to serve as a second alternate on the Silt Planning and Zoning Commission in July 2015, was appointed earlier this month to an open trustee seat vacated in July by Dylan Lewis. Lewis announced in late June that his family was moving to the Glenwood Springs area.

A resident of the Silt area for the past nine years, Brintnall will serve out the remainder of Lewis’ term, which expires in April 2018.



He was selected from a group of six people, which Mayor Rick Aluise described as one of the biggest and best applicant pools to apply for a single position.

Along with Brintnall, that pool included: Mark Anderson, who unsuccessfully ran for mayor in 2014; Chris Classen, a former town employee of nine years who stated his support for efforts to bring a grocery store to Silt; Krista Cox, a resident of eight years who described herself as a 30-something-year-old woman and political outsider; Tela Robinson, a resident who grew up in Silt and cited her “extensive experience in business and project management;” and Paul Taylor, a former Silt police chief and town trustee who fell short in his bid for a seat on the board in the April election.

After interviewing the candidates at the Aug. 8 meeting, Trustee T.J. Tucker made a motion to appoint Taylor to the vacant seat, but the motion died due to lack of support. Mayor Pro-tem Bryan Fleming then made a motion to appoint Brintnall. The motion passed with trustees Keith Richel and Aron Diaz voting against the appointment.

“We had great applicants,” Aluise said Monday. “It was a very hard choice because they were very, very good applicants. (It was) probably the biggest … one of the best crews we’ve had apply for one position.”

The appointment seems to signal a continuing trend where a growing number of people are interested in serving on the board.

Four candidates applied for a vacant seat last October, which ultimately was filled with the appointment of Tucker. And in the most recent election in April, four candidates ran for three positions on the board.

Along with the increased interest, Aluise observed a potential shift in people’s motivation for getting involved with town government.

“It use to be that people would run because they were mad about something,” he said. “I think they’re running now because they’re excited to be part of … making the town look better and the beautification (work). It’s just a different type of a reason why they’re running now than in the past.”

Indeed, Brintnall on Monday pointed to recent work in Stoney Ridge Park, as well as the ongoing Main Street infrastructure improvements as some of the good work he hopes to continues as a trustee, which he said was a natural progression for him after serving on the planning commission.

“When I took the p and z role it was actually with the thought of at some point possibly stepping into (a trustee’s position),” he said, adding that he wanted to test the waters of town government at a lower level to see if he enjoyed it. “And I do, so (this is) the next step.”


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