Fruita City Council Minutes 1 June 2, 2026
FRUITA CITY COUNCIL SPECIAL MEETING
JUNE 2, 2026
5:00 P.M.
1. CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL
The Special Meeting of the Fruita City Council was called to order at 5:04 p.m. by Mayor Matthew
Breman. City Council members in attendance in person were Jeannine Purser, Amy Miller, Rich
Parrish and Todd Kumro. Councilor Aaron Hancey was in attendance virtually.
Also present in person were a few members of the public.
2. AGENDA ITEMS
A. DISCUSSION ON CITY COUNCIL VACANCY
Council started off the meeting discussing the process for filling the vacancy on City Council that
resulted from the resignation of former City Councilor James Williams on May 5, 2026. Council
members were previously instructed by Mayor Breman to come to the meeting with their top three or
four choices of candidates to interview for the position to see whether there might be a natural grouping
of the same choices.
It was noted by the Mayor that each Council member had their own criteria for choosing candidates to
interview with the goal that the one ultimately chosen to be appointed might best fill Councilor
Williams’ shoes, be a good fit on Council and potentially even fill a missing gap in terms of Council
perspectives. The Council members and Mayor took turns providing the top three or four applicants
that they were interested in interviewing.
Based on the feedback, the Council came up with a list of four applicants they wished to interview:
Jared Prochnow, Jess Hearns, Sam Bous’sard and Scott Cotton.
There was some discussion about the interview questions and whether or not to adjust any of them. It
was noted that for prior Council interviews, each City Councilor asked one question (out of six) of
each applicant, and a decision was made to stay with the same format. Council members also had a
conversation about how to time the questions to get as many answers as possible within each fifteen-
minute interview. The Council members will have ten minutes in between interviews to discuss each
one.
The interviews for the City Council vacancy will be scheduled for Wednesday, June 3, 2026 at 6:00
p.m. Council members will have dinner at 5:45 p.m. prior to the start of the meeting. Councilor Parrish
noted that due to a previous commitment, he could only be in attendance virtually at 6:00 p.m.
There was a brief discussion about the most appropriate and transparent timing for Council to vote to
approve the selected applicant. It was reconfirmed that the next regularly scheduled Council meeting
on June 16, 2026 would be best.
City Manager Shannon Vassen appeared after the discussion at the meeting to inform the Mayor and
City Councilors that another one of the applicants had just recently withdrawn his application.
Fruita City Council Minutes 2 June 2, 2026
Originally, nine (9) applications were received by the City Clerk’s Office, but now the number of
candidates totaled seven (7).
B. OTHER ITEMS
Councilor Parrish also reported that he was unable to attend the first two meetings of the Museums of
Western Colorado (MWC) Board of Directors and would have to miss the third due to being at the
Colorado Municipal League (CML) Annual Conference. He added that he was meeting with MWC
Executive Director Shenna Hayden the following day to get caught up and determine whether Fruita’s
Council Liaison to the MWC board is a voting member or not.
Councilor Kumro reported that he was honored to speak at the Memorial Day Service on behalf of
veterans and Mayor Breman said it was a very nice speech given by Councilor Kumro.
Mayor Breman reported attending the Rotary’s 90
th
Anniversary and the Mesa County Commissioners’
Glade Park meeting. The main topics concerned land use, someone who is not following the rules and
how the county continues to work with the Glade Park Fire District on a solution for the reservoirs.
There was also a brief conversation about logistics for the CML Conference such as carpooling,
itinerary, per diem process and the CML app.
With no further business before the Council, the meeting was adjourned at 5:51 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Deb Woods
City Clerk