Minnesota and North Dakota Voter's Guide

Forum Communications Co., in collaboration with the League of Women Voters of Minnesota and of North Dakota, is providing this voter guide to help keep you informed ahead of the 2024 election.

  • Learn where candidates running for office in your community stand on the issues.
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Voter Guide

Burnsville City Mayor

The mayor is usually the head of the city and may represent the city in front of other government bodies. They also can preside at council meetings and appoint city workers. A mayor usually has a role in proposing a city budget which influences services provided to residents and can veto ordinances proposed by the city council.Voting in local elections is important - learn more here: Why Vote for Mayor

Click a candidate icon to find more information about the candidate. To compare two candidates, click the "compare" button. To start over, click a candidate icon.

  • Candidate picture

    Will Johnson
    (NP)

  • Candidate picture

    Elizabeth B. Kautz
    (NP)

Biographical Information

Why are you the best candidate for this position? (750 characters)

If elected, what will your top three priorities be and why? (500 characters)

If elected, what strategies will you use to ensure transparency, accountability and ethical conduct in city government under your leadership? (500 characters)

How will you engage with residents to solicit feedback, involve them in decision-making processes, and ensure their voices are heard? (500 characters)

How will you approach public safety and community policing to ensure the well-being of all residents? (500 characters)

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Campaign Email ebkautz@comcast.net
I am a proven leader, impassioned visionary, experienced and trusted. During my 29 years serving my Burnsville community as its servant leader, we have accomplished and achieved a strong financial position, coming from a AA Bond rating to a AAA Bond rating and help that AAA Bond rating through the recession. We have focused on development and redevelopment and the results is realized in the redevelopment of the 54 acres now known as the Heart of the City. We have a balanced land use between housing and commercial industrial land use. We lead in our State and in our country on Sustainability initiatives taking care of our environment and many more achievements. We are a safe city and lead our state of Minnesota in Public Safety.
Public Safety, Development/Redevelopment and Financial Management. Public Safety is important because policing is different, with the increase in mental health cases, the proliferation of guns which causes a great challenge with all the military weapons people possess. Secondly, we are built out in Burnsville so redevelopment is important to continue keeping our City vibrant. Thirdly, Financial Management is important we elected officials are stewards of the people’s money and trust.
I am proud that we in Burnsville have value transparency. All our meetings are on camera, all background materials are posted on our website. We will continue to focus on transparency with our engagement with our residents and businesses. We also focus on making sure that we are accountable to our people with clearly reporting on issues we are working on and how they are measured and progressing. Our budgets are on the website and we continue to improve our reporting. Ethics is an important val.
We have been engaging with our citizens since I came into office in 1995. We convene our community as we look to the future and define what we want our City to look like. They are involved in defining our strategic success factors. Today we continue to engage our community on all different issues, we bring City Hall to neighborhoods with our engagement vehicle. We reach out in person to our residents when there are issues and we work together to resolve issues. Our people’s voices is important,
We have worked collaboratively with both Police and Fire to define resources and personnel they need to insure the safety of our community. The analysis and reports have informed our decision making. I am proud that we equip our Police and Fire with the equipments and resources they need. We also will be adding more police officers and firefighter/paramedics to meet our personnel needs. We will continue to enhance our Behavioral Health Unit.
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The League of Women Voters of Minnesota and North Dakota crafted the questions sent to the candidates in the Spring of 2024. They reached out to candidates based on contact information in their public candidate filings. Candidates with email addresses were invited and reminded with emails. Candidates with only mailing addresses were sent a letter. Candidates with phone numbers received a phone call as well.

Candidate responses are published as they responded and have not been edited, except when responses were longer than the given character limit. In those cases, the responses are truncated.

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