Council Member Sharon Springer has announced her intention to run for reelection this coming November.
Springer was first elected to the Council in 2017 and served as Mayor during the 2019-20 cycle that saw her lead the City during the outbreak of the Covid-19 Pandemic.
Springer said in a written statement, “I am pleased to announce my candidacy to serve a second term as a member of the Burbank City Council. As I have always done, I pledge that I will stand on my record and run an open, honest and transparent campaign based solely on the issues. As much as anytime in the past decades, there are local, state and federal challenges of immense importance to all of us who live in Burbank.
As such, we need a strong, focused and informed Council that will balance the economic, social and quality of life needs and growth of all of Burbank. I look forward to discussing those challenges with everyone. I am asking for your support to work together for a better Burbank. Of most importance – please vote in November!”
Before being elected to the City Council, Springer was an original member of the Sustainable Burbank Commission and served for six years. She served for two years on the Burbank Water and Power Board and served as a liaison back to the Sustainable Burbank Commission.
She attended Ohio State University where she received an MS Degree in City and Regional Planning.
There will be three seats up on the Council for election on November 8. Candidates have between Monday, July 18, and closes on Friday, August 12, 2022, at 5:00 p.m to file their candidacy papers with the Burbank City Clerk.
I believe, in earnest that Councilwoman Springer has a good heart. Her record on expenses and taxes is not stellar. Along with other Council members, she voted for an unbalanced budget that results in the current state of high taxes and fees in Burbank. Councilwoman Springer would consider raising more tax rates such as the transient occupancy tax to keep up with the unbalanced state of our budget. Nearly $9 million for BurbankBus, a program she promotes and wants despite the buses running empty most of the time and Metro and Metro Micro offering overlapping services. Springer and the other, current Council members kept floating millions in overtime and pay for this by transferring 7% of your water and power billing (the “in lieu” transfer item) and by having a local sales tax that Los Angeles does not have. We pay 10.25% and Los Angeles pays 9.5%. Communities such as the Rancho are being adversely affected by SB35 because viable and usable properties are sitting idle that could be used to meet the state’s low-income housing mandate such as 2244 North Buena Vista and 10 Magnolia, two properties that are so mismanaged under the current Council that homeless people, children and vandals broke into them and caused one major fire in March 2021. Burbankers have suffered tremendously higher taxes and fees as a result of endless taxpayer-funded giveaways. Under the current city Council, business licenses and permits have languished and businesses have struggled to simply open due to an over-abundance of distractions, awards and thank-you’s. We need potholes repaired, not awards printed. We need taxes reduced, not services expanded. We need fewer hurdles to get our permits approved and they need approval very rapidly so that residents and companies can accomplish what needs to be done. Springer has a track record of raising fees and taxes. You can expect more of the same. Sharon Springer seems like someone I would enjoy as a neighbor, however, she is not the right person to lead us into a future of fiscal responsibility and on the path to rapidly rebuilding our COVID-decimated business community, lowering taxes and improving efficiency.
Councilwoman Springer has done a fantastic job of guiding our community through the various pitfalls of expansion and weathering the pandemic. She deserves to be reelected.
I urge all female residents of Burbank to support her and to vote to keep a woman on the city council. It’s important and it matters that women stick together and make their voices heard.
Christopher, thank you for your comments. Your platitudes about my “good heart” are wasted on me. The facts:
Measure T, the in lieu fee, passed in 2018 with over 81% of the Burbank vote and was a continuation of what was first passed in 1958.
Measure P – The sales tax increase also passed in 2018 with nearly 62% of the Burbank vote.
The Burbank 2022 -23 budget is balanced, now, and 5 years into the future.
The balanced budget was achieved through stamina, hard work and focus by Burbank City Council, staff and our residents. Factors important to the balanced budget: Passage of Measures T and P (above) by Burbank residents/voters, hiring freezes, Burbank employees paying 50% of pension costs, prepaying pension liabilities, compensation policy to pay average of market, federal stimulus payments, one-time budget savings, and proactively reducing worker compensation expense.
Please clarify how 2244 Buena Vista and 10 Magnolia are related to SB 35, the Rancho and how they are “mismanaged.”
Also, please be specific: “Springer has a track record of raising fees and taxes.” What “fees”? What other “taxes”? I’d like to respond.
Councilwoman Springer,
Thank you for this response to the first respondent in the comments section. You are fighting a kind of criticism based on misdirection, misinformation and the massaging of facts and the truth.
There’s also an undertone of misogyny and patronization in this comment that can’t be allowed to go without contestation.
Councilwoman Springer, you have my vote.
To ProudBurbankian: I will vote for a candidate based on that persons ability and track record. NEVER would a candidate get my vote based on the sex of that person. Shame on you for saying a persons sex is somehow a qualification to serve. Your way of thinking is very troubling, twisted, and bizarre. You do a disservice to Councilwoman Springer by saying she should be re-elected based on her being a woman. You owe her an apology.
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