Pueblo Mayor Heather Graham appoints Brian McCain as new chief of staff
Less than two months after she was sworn in, Pueblo Mayor Heather Graham has appointed Brian McCain as her new chief of staff.
Graham has not made many significant changes to the city’s leadership team since starting the job in February, except for the city attorney’s job and the chief of staff.
McCain comes to the position after working as the chief operating officer of Action Colorado, formerly known as Action 22. He will start Monday.
What McCain will do as the Pueblo mayor's chief of staff
McCain will now be in one of the top positions in municipal government, overseeing the city departments and working as a liaison with city council.
McCain previously worked for two Republican federal legislators, Scott Tipton and Wayne Allard. He is also a veteran of the U.S. Air Force.
“He is proud to have worked for over 15 years advocating for Pueblo and shares a vision of economic growth, prosperity, public safety, energy and opportunity,” Graham said at Pueblo City Council's March 25 meeting.
Two dozen people applied for the position, Pueblo Director of Public Affairs Haley Sue Robinson confirmed with the Chieftain in a text message. Half of the candidates met the minimum qualifications and five were interviewed by a panel of four, but McCain was the only finalist who got an interview with Graham.
Robinson declined to share the list of people who applied for the job, citing a provision in Colorado’s open records law that exempts disclosure of applicants who were not finalists. The four people on the committee to narrow down the final picks were Tammy Martinez, Corinne Koehler, Steve Nawrocki and Russell DeSalvo.
Former Mayor Nick Gradisar appointed Laura Solano as his chief of staff. After staying on for an interim period, she retired from the position after Graham’s inauguration and was replaced by Marisa Pacheco on an interim basis.
Pacheco is the city’s director of human resources and will resume those duties full-time on Monday, Robinson confirmed, but Robinson declined to comment on whether Pacheco applied for the permanent position.
Revisiting what happened with the city attorney
The city charter allows the mayor to fire and hire departmental directors, who are confirmed by city council. Graham fired City Attorney George Hypolite in one of her first actions as Pueblo’s second mayor in recent memory.
Former Municipal Judge Carla Sikes, whom Graham appointed as the interim city attorney after letting go of Hypolite, was the only person who applied for the full-time city attorney job and now holds the permanent position.
When Hypolite was appointed by Graham’s predecessor in August 2023, the Chieftain reported at the time that then-interim City Attorney Robert “Bob” Jagger also applied for the position. Jagger retired from the law department a few months after Hypolite started.
Anna Lynn Winfrey covers politics for the Pueblo Chieftain. She can be reached at awinfrey@gannett.com. Please support local news at subscribe.chieftain.com.
This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Here's who Mayor Heather Graham appointed as her new chief of staff
