Castle Rock Town Council 2026: District 3 and District 5 Candidates

Castle Rock puts three of its seven council seats on the ballot this November: the mayor, which we cover on its own page, and the councilmembers for District 3 and District 5. You vote in one of these only if you live in the district, and neither sitting councilmember is running.

Why both seats are open

The town's council page says seats for Districts 3 and 5 and the mayor were last elected in November 2022, and that "Councilmember terms are limited to two consecutive four-year terms." Bracken's town profile says he was first elected in 2018 with a term expiring in 2026; that is two full terms, and his name is not on the county's sample ballot.

Brooks was first elected in 2022, so he could have run again. But he won a state House seat in November 2024 and told the News-Press he would stay on council through the end of his term; that story notes "Colorado law does prohibit someone from being a candidate for two elected seats at the same time." Brooks is on this November's ballot as the Republican for House District 45, not for council.

The two split on the council's most public fight this summer. On Aug. 18, after downtown business owners filed a recall against District 4 Councilmember Mark Davis over a text reading "I'll drop getting rid of the DRB if you pull the recall," Ryan Hollingshead moved to censure Davis and Bracken seconded. Brooks and Tim Dietz opposed acting that night; the motion failed. Whoever wins these seats walks into that room.

How these districts voted in 2022

The county's official 2022 results are the only district numbers there are. In District 3, Bracken beat Dean Legatski 2,632 to 2,164, 54.2 percent to 44.6. In District 5, Brooks took 54.9 percent against Caryn Johnson at 36.3 and Caryn Ann Harlos at 7.7.

Roughly one in four voters who returned a ballot in each district in 2022 left the council line blank. In a race decided by a few hundred votes, the candidate whose neighbors actually fill in the oval wins.

District 3: Matt Smith

Smith has the most detailed campaign website of the five. It describes him as "a Castle Rock resident, veteran, former law enforcement officer, and community advocate" who "served four years in the U.S. Navy and six years in the Colorado Army National Guard before spending eight years as a deputy sheriff." He now works in technology and lists Search and Rescue volunteering and the town's Your Town Academy in 2017. His banner: "Conservative. Common-Sense. Local."

His three headings are Safe, Moving and Affordable. On safety he backs first responders but wants "clear privacy guardrails on Flock license-plate cameras," writing that "public safety should never become an excuse for unlimited surveillance." On traffic he wants a plan for I-25 shutdowns: "We can control how prepared Castle Rock is when one happens." On affordability he targets metro-district debt in The Meadows, citing a CBS Colorado report of $434 million in bond debt, and says families there "should not be stuck paying into a financial structure where the debt never seems to disappear."

On growth, Smith is more careful than a slogan. His growth page says Castle Rock "reports approximately 31,000 homes and apartments already built, with approvals for more than 55,000 entitled residential units," and argues that "already entitled is not the same as asking Council for more." He lists eight questions he would ask before granting new development rights, including "Water: Can we support it long term?" and "Who pays for the growth?" His bottom line: "If a project is asking Castle Rock for more, it should prove Castle Rock can support more."

District 3: Tiffany Coyle

Coyle's campaign site is TiffanyforCR.com, which its footer says was first published September 1. Her bio says she and her husband have lived in Douglas County for nearly two decades and raised four daughters in Castle Rock; she is a first-grade teacher who was a history major and a social studies teacher, and she calls herself "a long time resident, educator, and conservative." Her husband, she writes, has served 18 years with the Castle Rock Police Department as a patrolman, investigator and in community policing, and holds the department's Medal of Valor.

On growth she is the most specific of the five. Her responsible-growth page starts with what the town can and cannot do: annexation "is entirely discretionary," but "Town Council cannot simply vote 'no' on a project that fully complies with existing statutes" without exposing taxpayers to lawsuits. What council can do, she writes, is "mandate strict water-dedication requirements, enforce smart density caps, and set clear architectural rules," and use its control of rezonings, annexations and development agreements. Her rule: "infrastructure must come first, and developers must pay their fair share," funding utility connections, road widenings and intersection upgrades "before extra traffic ever spills onto our local streets." She notes the town keeps only about $5.50 to $6.00 per $100,000 of a home's value in property tax, under 2 percent of town revenue, so Castle Rock runs on its 4.2 percent sales tax and impact fees.

Her fiscal page puts public safety, infrastructure and core services ahead of "non-essential pet projects" and repeats that growth must pay its own way. Her transparency page wants town decisions explained "in plain, understandable language" rather than "a line item hidden within a 200 page PDF budget document." She lists no endorsements. Her campaign email is tiffany4cr@gmail.com.

District 3: Chris Phelen

We have not found a campaign website, platform statement or news coverage for Phelen. The town's committee registry shows "Phelen for Town Council," registered by Chris Phelen on Aug. 26 for "Election to Castle Rock Town Council District 3."

One note for the record. A Chris Phelen "also from Douglas County," described as a former chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, ran in the 2024 Republican primary for the 4th Congressional District. No source we have read connects that candidate to the District 3 candidate, and we do not assume it.

District 5: Mitchell Sawin and Patrick Reilly

Same situation. Sawin registered a committee under his own name on Aug. 21 with the stated purpose "Town Council District 5." Reilly registered "Reilly for District 5" on Aug. 20, purpose "Elect Patrick Reilly to Town Council." Neither has a website we could find, neither has been covered by the News-Press, and the Castle Rock Chamber lists no candidate forum. Voters in southeast Castle Rock are choosing between two names and two phone numbers on a town web page.

Growth, water and downtown

On the Dawson Trails and Crystal Valley pipeline, none of the five names either project in any material we found. The council approved 100 townhomes in Dawson Trails "south of the new Crystal Valley Interchange" unanimously on July 7, and Bracken called it "a prime example of developers being open to down zoning." Two candidate documents address the pipeline: Smith's entitled-versus-new framework and Coyle's water-dedication, density-cap and infrastructure-first conditions. Neither names Dawson Trails or Crystal Valley.

On water, Smith asks it as one of his eight questions and Coyle would make water dedication a condition of approval; neither offers a plan. On downtown, no candidate has published a word, even though the Davis recall is about downtown regulation and the council voted 4-3 on Sept. 1 to keep title to school-designated land over the school district's objection. The other three candidates may hold strong views on all of this. They have not written them down anywhere we can find.

Ballots mail Friday, Oct. 2, and are due by 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 3. The town says the districts get redrawn in 2027, so the winners will serve most of a term under a map that changes. More: the mayor's race, every race and measure on your ballot, and the ballot guide. We do not endorse candidates. Campaigns can send corrections to hello@discoverdougco.com.