The ballet meets the ballot in Burnsville

Jerry Willenburg is still unhappy that the Burnsville City Council went ahead with a $20 million performing arts center without putting the question to voters.

"We had hundreds of people coming forward to say, 'Don't do this!'" he said. "We pleaded with the city for a referendum. A majority of the council said, 'We don't need to do that, because we know the citizens want it.' And I'm going, 'Excuse me? Because I can't hear you over the voices of the 150 people who've turned out tonight to say we don't.'"

Now he's running for mayor, in hopes the referendum will take the form of a change at the top.

Mayor Elizabeth Kautz, who pushed for the Performing Arts Center, faces three opponents in the Sept. 9 primary. One of them praises her, saying she has done "an excellent job over the years." The others are emphasizing the Arts Center decision in their campaigns.

"We don't need a performing arts center in Burnsville when they already exist on both sides of the river," said candidate James Haedtke. "Bloomington and Lakeville both have them."

Kautz said the Arts Center, now under construction along with the park it faces, is the outcome of a nearly 15-year civic process that was aimed at eliminating growing signs of blight and creating people-attracting new civic amenities in their place.

There was a referendum of sorts, she said: In 2005, the city commissioned a poll from a firm called Decision Resources Inc., which does similar work for many suburbs.

The result: Fifty-eight percent of those questioned supported the construction of the arts center.

The survey also asked about tax hikes to pay for it. Thirty-six percent said they wouldn't willingly pay a dime extra. Most of the rest were willing to hand over at least small amounts to help support it. Even so, a formal referendum wasn't necessary, Kautz said, because taxes weren't being raised to finance the center.

Willenburg believes the survey pushed people into supporting the center by first asking them whether the arts are important in a community -- 83 percent agreed -- then asking them about the center, as if to put them on the spot.

Kautz disagrees. "Our citizens are much more intelligent than that. They can't be led."

Willenburg and Haedtke put the matter into a wider context. For Haedtke the context is rising costs and taxes. For Willenburg it's how things are done. "It seems like topics come before the council and get tabled to work sessions that don't take place on camera. Even though they may be technically public, many look at work sessions as behind closed doors, and I'd like to change that."

The city's expenses are rising, Kautz said, because the city is doing more. During her five terms in office the number of police officers has risen from 51 to 75, she said, and serious crime is down 30 percent. But sound financial management, she added, has reduced the city's debt from $100 million to $40 million.

As for secrecy, she said, "reporters attend those work sessions, but we're trying to keep them informal and comfortable for people to interact with us. I'm OK with televising if we can make the arrangements, but that does cost money."

Dan Tollefson, the third challenger, who came within a couple of hundred votes of being elected to the council in 2006, is much less critical. "I don't have any issues with the mayor," he said, "but a lot of people do and that's why I'm running: to give them another choice."

A big issue for him, he said, is more east-west mass transit options across the southern metro, not just commutes extending north across the river. "If we're going to be a city, let's act like a city."

David Peterson • 952-882-9023