Chris John
Name: Chris John
Public Office Sought: Burnsville City Council
Email: Chris John for Burnsville
Campaign Phone: 952-222-8273
Campaign Website: ChrisJohn4Burnsville.com
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook. /comchrisjohn4burnsville
Twitter Handle: n/a
Candidate Bio
My wife, Nicole, and I chose Burnsville to raise our boys in 2004. As our kids went through ISD 191 schools, we volunteered and found our community, and I knew I wanted to be directly involved. I was first appointed as an alternate on the Economic Development Commission (EDC) in 2012 and later served a two-term commitment with the EDC, ultimately serving as the Commission Chair. I shifted to the Planning Commission in 2019, where I recently finished my first term and completed the term as the Commission’s Chair. While serving on the commissions, I also served for several years as a liaison to the Burnsville Commercial Real Estate Committee (BCREC) and served on the ISD191 Finance Committee and additional boards.
The Commissions facilitate hearings for planned developments and make recommendations on how to proceed with current projects. My roles with the Commissions have provided me with organic training opportunities, while I endeavor to move into a seat on the City Council. I have been grateful to work directly with City Council in joint projects including the Economic Development and Redevelopment Strategic Plan in 2018, the city’s 2040 Comprehensive Vision Plan, and the Center Village Vision Plan, among others.
What would be your top three priorities if elected?
Increase city staffing to sufficient levels:
Members of our current Council, in attempts to reduce city spending, have cut the budget down to below sufficient levels to provide the services necessary for a city our size. A study conducted by Ehlers Financial Advisors found that our city is understaffed by 56 full time equivalents (FTE). From private conversations with staff, I have learned that some staff are suffering burn-out from lack of resources necessary to maintain their workloads.
Maintain our participation in the current joint power’s agreement with the Dakota Broadband Board:
This is a unique opportunity to be able to ensure the necessary infrastructure is present to provide high-performance internet access throughout Burnsville and Dakota County, using a high-speed fiber network. Not only will having this infrastructure in place attract businesses to Burnsville, but it can provide our residents working or schooling from home the best possible internet connections. It can also provide opportunities for the city to rent out the fiber to internet service providers, funding the cost of the infrastructure and also breaking up the current monopoly in place with our limited internet provider options. Members of our current council are discussing breaking away from our Joint Powers Agreement with the Dakota Broadband Board, which could disengage the entire project.
Ensure that the Freeway Landfill gets the adequate treatment required to no longer affect our drinking water:
Currently, we are fortunate to have the Kraemar Mining and Materials Inc. pumping water out of their limestone quarry, which has been keeping our drinking water from being exposed to the waste product in this existing unlined landfill. However, we can’t expect KMM to continue to pump water forever, and we need to work with the landowner to ensure his family’s long closed landfill is adequately remedied.
How would you characterize the business climate in Burnsville and what is the role of businesses supporting quality of life issues in the community?
Through my work on the Economic Development Commission and even more directly through the Planning Commission, I constantly hear from the business owners how much they appreciate working with the City of Burnsville in comparison with other Metro Cities due to our clear, concise policies and our very diligent staff, available to as questions and assist in any possible way. I think it is important for us to continue to maintain this reputation within the business community by ensuring we have the necessary city staff numbers to continue those solid relationships.
We are very fortunate to have a variety of businesses including warehousing/shipping, service oriented, retail, and dining options in Burnsville. These businesses provide job opportunities and tax relief for the residents and are also instrumental in ensuring convenient access to goods and services, yielding a better quality of life.
What role do you think the city should have in attracting and retaining jobs, and what steps would you take to solicit new businesses to, and retain existing businesses in, Burnsville?
Burnsville has always done a great job in being a pro-business community. We have utilized several programs to attract businesses to Burnsville. We’ve created Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts and use other funding incentives to bring businesses into Burnsville. In my time on the EDC and more significantly the Planning Commission, I’ve heard nothing but positive feedback from business owners in regard to working with City Staff. We are fortunate to have the people in place to make and retain our business relationships, and we should support our staff so they can continue to bridge these relationships for our community.
We can also ensure Burnsville has the infrastructure available that businesses are looking for, such as high-performance internet access by maintaining our current Joint Powers Agreement with the Dakota Broadband Board.
What policies, if any, would you support to help employers address the labor shortage?
I believe the best policies to help support employers from a municipal government standpoint are those that ensure we have a good balance of residential housing options available for all income levels. As most people would like to live near where they school and/or work and continue to live within their means, we should focus energy on attracting adequate, affordable redevelopment housing projects and not just high-end luxury apartments.
Do you support any specific employment-related proposals in Burnsville (such as minimum wage, sick time, or mandatory scheduling notice)? If so, what steps would you take to understand the impact of an ordinance on the many types of businesses in Burnsville and how would you define any exceptions to those policies?
I do believe it is important to ensure employees are paid a fair wage, treated fairly, and are not suffering financial hardship by staying home when they are ill, which are basic human rights. These rights improve the community and are overall better for stable and vibrant economies. However, these types of policies are much better implemented at a state, or even a metro-wide level where all communities are affected by them evenly. Trying to implement these types of policies in a metro-locked, suburban community such as Burnsville will result in businesses being more prone to set up shop just outside our boarders, expanding the tax base of our neighboring communities yet staying close enough to pull from Burnsville’s resources to escape what they would consider “over-regulation”.
Public safety and rising crime rates are of serious concern to the business community and residents. What strategies or policies would you propose to address public safety issues facing your community?
One of our greatest challenges over the next 5-10 years will be rebuilding our city staff to the adequate numbers to operate efficiently. Unfortunately, in attempts to score political points by decreasing property taxes, our city has fallen behind on keeping up with staffing levels.
The most apparent is in our emergency services: police, fire and medical. While our population has grown over the past 20 years, the size of our emergency services staff has remained completely stagnant and are operating at minimum levels, especially given the call for service levels has increased significantly. One of our top priorities should be to reallocate these staffing levels. Out of the 56 understaffed FTE’s the city needs, at least 27 of them need to be dedicated to emergency services over the next five years.
Burnsville’s Police Chief Tanya Schwartz has provided outside of the box solutions to address public safety issues, including a Behavioral Health Unit. Rather than implementing a one-size fits all police response strategy to all calls, the behavior health unit utilizes mental health experts to be deployed when those type of services are warranted. Re-allocating our resources to improve services is the type of policy we should continue to implement.
What strategies or policies would you propose to address housing issues facing your community?
Burnsville has a variety of housing types throughout the city including single family homes, mobile home parks, duplexes, townhomes and a variety of multi-unit facilities. I would like to see Burnsville continue to keep a variety of housing options to meet the various needs of all residents.
I support programs that would help fund redevelopment projects for affordable housing.
What strategies or policies would you propose to address transportation issues facing your community? Have your strategies or views changed on transportation since we’ve seen shifts in road use, public transportation use, work from home models, etc. due to the pandemic?
I’ve been impressed with the implementation of the Orange Line, “Bus” Rapid Transit line. The Planning Commission helped push through zoning changes to create “Transit Oriented Districts”, that makes rapid transit a more suitable option, especially given the current rise in fuel prices.
One of our opportunities is to help develop safer passageways for pedestrians, and we refer to these as walkable districts throughout Burnsville. Our most neglected - but should be the most important - is pedestrians crossing Highway 13 to attend Burnsville High School. Other key areas for consideration include crossing Nicollet Avenue in the Heart of the City or County Road 42 in the Center Village/Mall area. This is both a traffic flow and public safety issue that needs to be addressed.
What are your priorities for the City’s budget?
Number one is to increase our staffing levels to adequately and efficiently operate a city the size of Burnsville. Number two is to find new revenue streams to replace dying revenue streams such as cable franchise fees that will eventually phase out.
We want to find ways to ensure our city services stay at the high-quality levels we are used to, without burdening our community by raising the tax levy. Our city has fallen behind on staffing, and therefore, it has put us in a bind.
We should always consider other ways we can raise the city’s revenues. One example is continuing with the initiatives of the Dakota Broadband project. Future funding obtained from this project may not completely absolve our underfunding over the next several years, but they are a step in the right direction and could lessen increased burden on city residents.
What will you do to expand Burnsville’s tax base?
One of the biggest opportunities in expanding the tax base is redeveloping the Burnsville Mall area also known as the Center Village. The number one question I am asked when I talk about my participation with the city commissions or running for city council is, “what are we going to do with the mall?”
The Burnsville Mall has been our economic hub since it opened in 1977. The current state of the mall is not a secret and we have done some preliminary work to address the issue. As a member of the EDC at the time I had a part in developing the Center Village Plan. However, my suggestion that the city needs to be more directly involved in the implementation of this plan was quickly countered by some on the council. It has been several years, and the project has not yet come to fruition.
I believe we need to work more directly in trying to make our vision a reality. This is one big step in expanding our tax base, plus redeveloping the key economic factor that our city was built upon.
How will you work with K-12 and post-secondary educational institutions and businesses to ensure our region develops and retains an educated workforce?
Burnsville residents are split into to three separate school districts, the most notable is ISD 191 not only because the number of our residents who attend ISD 191 schools, but more notably the High School carries our city’s name. Therefore, the reputation of the district reflects directly to the city.
Simultaneously volunteering with both the ISD 191 Finance Committee and the city’s Economic Development Commission revealed the necessity for the City of Burnsville to ensure that Burnsville High School gains the reputation it deserves, rather than the negative press it currently receives. The City Council has since started meetings with the school board on a quarterly basis, and I believe this is a practice that should continue well into the future.
Are there any services currently provided by the city that you believe should be cut back or eliminated? Are there new opportunities to share services with other entities?
The city has cut many resources over the recent years and sometimes on an extreme level. Our annual audit is showing that we are significantly understaffed, and our outlook projections show us to be underfunded over the next several years. Our City Manager Gregg Lindberg calls the city a “service organization” and he is absolutely right; the services a city provides are what most directly affects people’s daily lives. In a metro-locked, suburban community, our city services need to at least stay on par with the rest of our neighboring cities to retain/attract residents and businesses to Burnsville.
I would be open to sharing resources, only if it makes the most sense for the city, and the affected department would be on-board with the decision. I would not support initiatives that dilute our current services or put our residents at more risk just to save some money.
What is the role of the City Council in fostering increased minority- and women-owned businesses in Burnsville?
There are many start-up grants and other development tools available to assist under-represented business owners. Burnsville currently has a start-up consultation program that helps people access those funds. This program is called our Open To Business Program, and it has been in existence for over a decade, which is a great resource for all people interested in starting a business and can certainly help people in accessing those funds to do so. I annually supported the Open to Business Program when I was on the EDC and will continue to do so if elected to the Council.
What further policies can Burnsville adopt to help the business community recover from the COVID-19 pandemic?
As we all know, the pandemic had us schooling and working from home, which is something many of us had never experienced. We have been exposed the fact that our current infrastructure is limited and not accessible to everyone. It also guarantees us to only have one internet service provider (ISP) either Xfinity or Century Link depending on where you are in the city. In fact, most of us do not even have a broadband option, as our internet is connected through our cable TV via modem. In summary, we need to continue to work with the county’s Dakota Broadband Board and help set-up the infrastructure to bring broadband fiberoptic internet cable throughout the city.
Is there anything else you would like to share with voters not covered above?
My sense of community comes from being shipboard on an aircraft carrier in the US Navy. It dawned on me that everyone onboard had an essential role in ensuring we arrived at our destination and successfully completed our mission. The same sense of collaboration has stayed with me ever since. I believe we have the same opportunity to help build the community we envision in our home city. To do so, however, we need to each step up and do our part. That has been my driving force when volunteering my time with the local athletic club, the school district, or participating on the city commissions.
Today I feel ready to take my commitment to the city of Burnsville to a new level and I ask for your vote for city council. Thank you for taking the time to read my profile and I hope that after reading about my experience and my vision, I am able to earn your vote.
Public Office Sought: Burnsville City Council
Email: Chris John for Burnsville
Campaign Phone: 952-222-8273
Campaign Website: ChrisJohn4Burnsville.com
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook. /comchrisjohn4burnsville
Twitter Handle: n/a
Candidate Bio
My wife, Nicole, and I chose Burnsville to raise our boys in 2004. As our kids went through ISD 191 schools, we volunteered and found our community, and I knew I wanted to be directly involved. I was first appointed as an alternate on the Economic Development Commission (EDC) in 2012 and later served a two-term commitment with the EDC, ultimately serving as the Commission Chair. I shifted to the Planning Commission in 2019, where I recently finished my first term and completed the term as the Commission’s Chair. While serving on the commissions, I also served for several years as a liaison to the Burnsville Commercial Real Estate Committee (BCREC) and served on the ISD191 Finance Committee and additional boards.
The Commissions facilitate hearings for planned developments and make recommendations on how to proceed with current projects. My roles with the Commissions have provided me with organic training opportunities, while I endeavor to move into a seat on the City Council. I have been grateful to work directly with City Council in joint projects including the Economic Development and Redevelopment Strategic Plan in 2018, the city’s 2040 Comprehensive Vision Plan, and the Center Village Vision Plan, among others.
What would be your top three priorities if elected?
Increase city staffing to sufficient levels:
Members of our current Council, in attempts to reduce city spending, have cut the budget down to below sufficient levels to provide the services necessary for a city our size. A study conducted by Ehlers Financial Advisors found that our city is understaffed by 56 full time equivalents (FTE). From private conversations with staff, I have learned that some staff are suffering burn-out from lack of resources necessary to maintain their workloads.
Maintain our participation in the current joint power’s agreement with the Dakota Broadband Board:
This is a unique opportunity to be able to ensure the necessary infrastructure is present to provide high-performance internet access throughout Burnsville and Dakota County, using a high-speed fiber network. Not only will having this infrastructure in place attract businesses to Burnsville, but it can provide our residents working or schooling from home the best possible internet connections. It can also provide opportunities for the city to rent out the fiber to internet service providers, funding the cost of the infrastructure and also breaking up the current monopoly in place with our limited internet provider options. Members of our current council are discussing breaking away from our Joint Powers Agreement with the Dakota Broadband Board, which could disengage the entire project.
Ensure that the Freeway Landfill gets the adequate treatment required to no longer affect our drinking water:
Currently, we are fortunate to have the Kraemar Mining and Materials Inc. pumping water out of their limestone quarry, which has been keeping our drinking water from being exposed to the waste product in this existing unlined landfill. However, we can’t expect KMM to continue to pump water forever, and we need to work with the landowner to ensure his family’s long closed landfill is adequately remedied.
How would you characterize the business climate in Burnsville and what is the role of businesses supporting quality of life issues in the community?
Through my work on the Economic Development Commission and even more directly through the Planning Commission, I constantly hear from the business owners how much they appreciate working with the City of Burnsville in comparison with other Metro Cities due to our clear, concise policies and our very diligent staff, available to as questions and assist in any possible way. I think it is important for us to continue to maintain this reputation within the business community by ensuring we have the necessary city staff numbers to continue those solid relationships.
We are very fortunate to have a variety of businesses including warehousing/shipping, service oriented, retail, and dining options in Burnsville. These businesses provide job opportunities and tax relief for the residents and are also instrumental in ensuring convenient access to goods and services, yielding a better quality of life.
What role do you think the city should have in attracting and retaining jobs, and what steps would you take to solicit new businesses to, and retain existing businesses in, Burnsville?
Burnsville has always done a great job in being a pro-business community. We have utilized several programs to attract businesses to Burnsville. We’ve created Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts and use other funding incentives to bring businesses into Burnsville. In my time on the EDC and more significantly the Planning Commission, I’ve heard nothing but positive feedback from business owners in regard to working with City Staff. We are fortunate to have the people in place to make and retain our business relationships, and we should support our staff so they can continue to bridge these relationships for our community.
We can also ensure Burnsville has the infrastructure available that businesses are looking for, such as high-performance internet access by maintaining our current Joint Powers Agreement with the Dakota Broadband Board.
What policies, if any, would you support to help employers address the labor shortage?
I believe the best policies to help support employers from a municipal government standpoint are those that ensure we have a good balance of residential housing options available for all income levels. As most people would like to live near where they school and/or work and continue to live within their means, we should focus energy on attracting adequate, affordable redevelopment housing projects and not just high-end luxury apartments.
Do you support any specific employment-related proposals in Burnsville (such as minimum wage, sick time, or mandatory scheduling notice)? If so, what steps would you take to understand the impact of an ordinance on the many types of businesses in Burnsville and how would you define any exceptions to those policies?
I do believe it is important to ensure employees are paid a fair wage, treated fairly, and are not suffering financial hardship by staying home when they are ill, which are basic human rights. These rights improve the community and are overall better for stable and vibrant economies. However, these types of policies are much better implemented at a state, or even a metro-wide level where all communities are affected by them evenly. Trying to implement these types of policies in a metro-locked, suburban community such as Burnsville will result in businesses being more prone to set up shop just outside our boarders, expanding the tax base of our neighboring communities yet staying close enough to pull from Burnsville’s resources to escape what they would consider “over-regulation”.
Public safety and rising crime rates are of serious concern to the business community and residents. What strategies or policies would you propose to address public safety issues facing your community?
One of our greatest challenges over the next 5-10 years will be rebuilding our city staff to the adequate numbers to operate efficiently. Unfortunately, in attempts to score political points by decreasing property taxes, our city has fallen behind on keeping up with staffing levels.
The most apparent is in our emergency services: police, fire and medical. While our population has grown over the past 20 years, the size of our emergency services staff has remained completely stagnant and are operating at minimum levels, especially given the call for service levels has increased significantly. One of our top priorities should be to reallocate these staffing levels. Out of the 56 understaffed FTE’s the city needs, at least 27 of them need to be dedicated to emergency services over the next five years.
Burnsville’s Police Chief Tanya Schwartz has provided outside of the box solutions to address public safety issues, including a Behavioral Health Unit. Rather than implementing a one-size fits all police response strategy to all calls, the behavior health unit utilizes mental health experts to be deployed when those type of services are warranted. Re-allocating our resources to improve services is the type of policy we should continue to implement.
What strategies or policies would you propose to address housing issues facing your community?
Burnsville has a variety of housing types throughout the city including single family homes, mobile home parks, duplexes, townhomes and a variety of multi-unit facilities. I would like to see Burnsville continue to keep a variety of housing options to meet the various needs of all residents.
I support programs that would help fund redevelopment projects for affordable housing.
What strategies or policies would you propose to address transportation issues facing your community? Have your strategies or views changed on transportation since we’ve seen shifts in road use, public transportation use, work from home models, etc. due to the pandemic?
I’ve been impressed with the implementation of the Orange Line, “Bus” Rapid Transit line. The Planning Commission helped push through zoning changes to create “Transit Oriented Districts”, that makes rapid transit a more suitable option, especially given the current rise in fuel prices.
One of our opportunities is to help develop safer passageways for pedestrians, and we refer to these as walkable districts throughout Burnsville. Our most neglected - but should be the most important - is pedestrians crossing Highway 13 to attend Burnsville High School. Other key areas for consideration include crossing Nicollet Avenue in the Heart of the City or County Road 42 in the Center Village/Mall area. This is both a traffic flow and public safety issue that needs to be addressed.
What are your priorities for the City’s budget?
Number one is to increase our staffing levels to adequately and efficiently operate a city the size of Burnsville. Number two is to find new revenue streams to replace dying revenue streams such as cable franchise fees that will eventually phase out.
We want to find ways to ensure our city services stay at the high-quality levels we are used to, without burdening our community by raising the tax levy. Our city has fallen behind on staffing, and therefore, it has put us in a bind.
We should always consider other ways we can raise the city’s revenues. One example is continuing with the initiatives of the Dakota Broadband project. Future funding obtained from this project may not completely absolve our underfunding over the next several years, but they are a step in the right direction and could lessen increased burden on city residents.
What will you do to expand Burnsville’s tax base?
One of the biggest opportunities in expanding the tax base is redeveloping the Burnsville Mall area also known as the Center Village. The number one question I am asked when I talk about my participation with the city commissions or running for city council is, “what are we going to do with the mall?”
The Burnsville Mall has been our economic hub since it opened in 1977. The current state of the mall is not a secret and we have done some preliminary work to address the issue. As a member of the EDC at the time I had a part in developing the Center Village Plan. However, my suggestion that the city needs to be more directly involved in the implementation of this plan was quickly countered by some on the council. It has been several years, and the project has not yet come to fruition.
I believe we need to work more directly in trying to make our vision a reality. This is one big step in expanding our tax base, plus redeveloping the key economic factor that our city was built upon.
How will you work with K-12 and post-secondary educational institutions and businesses to ensure our region develops and retains an educated workforce?
Burnsville residents are split into to three separate school districts, the most notable is ISD 191 not only because the number of our residents who attend ISD 191 schools, but more notably the High School carries our city’s name. Therefore, the reputation of the district reflects directly to the city.
Simultaneously volunteering with both the ISD 191 Finance Committee and the city’s Economic Development Commission revealed the necessity for the City of Burnsville to ensure that Burnsville High School gains the reputation it deserves, rather than the negative press it currently receives. The City Council has since started meetings with the school board on a quarterly basis, and I believe this is a practice that should continue well into the future.
Are there any services currently provided by the city that you believe should be cut back or eliminated? Are there new opportunities to share services with other entities?
The city has cut many resources over the recent years and sometimes on an extreme level. Our annual audit is showing that we are significantly understaffed, and our outlook projections show us to be underfunded over the next several years. Our City Manager Gregg Lindberg calls the city a “service organization” and he is absolutely right; the services a city provides are what most directly affects people’s daily lives. In a metro-locked, suburban community, our city services need to at least stay on par with the rest of our neighboring cities to retain/attract residents and businesses to Burnsville.
I would be open to sharing resources, only if it makes the most sense for the city, and the affected department would be on-board with the decision. I would not support initiatives that dilute our current services or put our residents at more risk just to save some money.
What is the role of the City Council in fostering increased minority- and women-owned businesses in Burnsville?
There are many start-up grants and other development tools available to assist under-represented business owners. Burnsville currently has a start-up consultation program that helps people access those funds. This program is called our Open To Business Program, and it has been in existence for over a decade, which is a great resource for all people interested in starting a business and can certainly help people in accessing those funds to do so. I annually supported the Open to Business Program when I was on the EDC and will continue to do so if elected to the Council.
What further policies can Burnsville adopt to help the business community recover from the COVID-19 pandemic?
As we all know, the pandemic had us schooling and working from home, which is something many of us had never experienced. We have been exposed the fact that our current infrastructure is limited and not accessible to everyone. It also guarantees us to only have one internet service provider (ISP) either Xfinity or Century Link depending on where you are in the city. In fact, most of us do not even have a broadband option, as our internet is connected through our cable TV via modem. In summary, we need to continue to work with the county’s Dakota Broadband Board and help set-up the infrastructure to bring broadband fiberoptic internet cable throughout the city.
Is there anything else you would like to share with voters not covered above?
My sense of community comes from being shipboard on an aircraft carrier in the US Navy. It dawned on me that everyone onboard had an essential role in ensuring we arrived at our destination and successfully completed our mission. The same sense of collaboration has stayed with me ever since. I believe we have the same opportunity to help build the community we envision in our home city. To do so, however, we need to each step up and do our part. That has been my driving force when volunteering my time with the local athletic club, the school district, or participating on the city commissions.
Today I feel ready to take my commitment to the city of Burnsville to a new level and I ask for your vote for city council. Thank you for taking the time to read my profile and I hope that after reading about my experience and my vision, I am able to earn your vote.