Burnsville loses dean of council members

Charlie Crichton, Burnsville's longest-serving City Council member and a man known for his penchant for speaking his mind, died on Sunday. He was 83.

Crichton, a fiscal conservative and one of the oldest serving City Council members in Minnesota, was serving his fifth term after winning reelection in 2010.

He had suffered from health problems for years, and his health worsened in early February when he was hospitalized. The city said he died Sunday at St. Francis Hospital in Shakopee. The cause of death was not provided.

"I'm going to miss him," said Tom Hansen, Burnsville's assistant city manager. "Efficient and effective government would be the things he would be most proud to have achieved while serving."

Crichton was elected to the council in 1992 and quickly became known for his reluctance to spend taxpayer money.

"We need to listen to the people, not just go with our own ideas," he told the Star Tribune in 2010.

"Charlie was a tax hawk," City Council Member Dan Kealy said in a prepared statement. "Taxpayers have lost one of the best civil servants in the city's history."

Crichton was among those who opposed building the $20 million Burnsville Performing Arts Center in the Heart of the City redevelopment district.

He and Mayor Elizabeth Kautz were the council's longest-serving members. Crichton ran for mayor in 2000 and lost to Kautz, who had been elected in 1994.

"We served together for 18 years," Kautz said. "We may have disagreed on policy tactics, [but] I know Charlie only wanted what was best for Burnsville. The city lost a dear friend."

Crichton worked with the company Univac and helped introduce the country's first commercial computer, Univac I, in 1957. He later joined Control Data and worked there for 25 years.

Before retiring and moving to Burnsville, he lived in Arden Hills, where he served on the council in the 1970s and as mayor in the early 1980s.

No memorial arrangements have been made yet.