Citizens of Zone 2 have ended their quest to recall Springfield Councilman Justin Burnett as the councilman does some changing of his own. The once unhappy constituents now applaud his attention to local issues and dedication to serving voters.
Katie Webb, the spokesperson for the recall effort, says that the beginning of Burnett’s term was filled with discontent.
“Justin came along and kind of derailed everything with his motions that he was introducing and he was bogging down the system. I felt like he was taking away from very serious issues on the northwest side instead of getting together with council and the rest of the city.”
Burnett received much criticism in his push for a stronger indecent exposure law. The city, which passed the stricter policy last year, restored the original law in March after being sued by the ACLU.
Webb says that others began to come to her expressing their individual problems with Burnett and opinions snowballed into a movement to take back his seat.
After some turbulence with Zone 2 citizens, Burnett submitted his resignation before rescinding it less than a day later. He opted to instead talk out those problems at a town hall meeting in February.
“All of us that were there were just shocked. All of us said he was speaking intelligently about city issues, he wasn’t worried about international issues, he had great answers, if he didn’t know the answer he knew who to refer us to when we asked questions.”
Webb added that some of Burnett’s more serious views on topics such as immigration had “totally flipped” as well.
Moving forward, Webb hopes that the councilman will honor his words to help make Springfield a better place and that he will be able to stay on the same page with the citizens he represents.
