Burleson City Council Place 3 Candidates

Brief overview on Alexa Boedeker and Brandon Crisp, the two people running to replace retiring Ronnie Johnson

BURLESON – With councilmember Ronnie Johnson retiring at the end of his term, Burleson will elect one of Alexa Boedeker or Brandon Crisp to replace him on the city council in May.

While neither candidate has run for city council before, they both have experience being involved in their community.

Boedeker, a realtor, has served on Burleson’s Commission 4B and chaired the City Impact Committee. Crisp, a software engineer, has a Master’s degree in public administration, has worked as a Georgia Department of Labor tax-auditor and ran for Georgia’s state government.

“I’m not very good at just being a complainer,” Boedeker said of her desire to be involved with the city. “I think you should be out there doing something about [the issues].”

Crisp’s desire to be involved comes from a fascination with the way governments operate, he said.

The most involved Crisp has been in government was during his internship with a Georgia county commissioner. In that role Crisp spearheaded the development of an app to improve communications within the department.

Boedeker may have been most involved in government when she owned a small-business, “Sassy Frass Children’s Boutique,” in Old Town. Having opened the business in 2010, Boedeker regularly interacted with the city-government while Old Town was going through construction.

Boedeker transitioned to realty and obtained her realtor license in 2017. The real-estate business has given her a front-row seat to Burleson’s growth. That growth is something both Boedeker and Crisp – along with everyone in Burleson government – are concerned with.

“People are going to want to move here,” Crisp said. “And it’s really up to the city council to make sure that we’re offering for all these people that are going to move here the infrastructure that will hold them [and] the businesses they need to serve them.”

Boedeker said it’s “incredible” how many people are moving to Burleson, but “we’ve got to find out where we’re going to put them.”

Crisp points to the development of Chisholm Summit in Burleson as a potential way to continue to handle the city’s growth – zoning for the development of housing, businesses and other infrastructure before people populate the area.

Chisholm Summit and the rest of the undeveloped west side of Burleson could be seen as an area of greater relevance in this election due to its association with the potential construction of a new library and/or City Hall.

720 Design Inc. and Burleson community services director DeAnna Phillips presented a Burleson Public Library master plan – including a new $52 million 60,000 square-foot library built in the undeveloped west side of Burleson – to the Burleson City Council February 5.

Boedeker said it’d be great to move the Burleson Public Library to the proposed location.

“No, [the west side of town is] not where everything is right now, but maybe it spreads things out a bit more and still gives that feel of ‘I’m in Burleson,’” Boedeker said.

Crisp is also not against building a library on that side of Burleson as he believes that’d make that area “a great anchor point” and it wouldn’t be fair to the people who eventually live over there to have to drive the distance to the current library. He pointed to a new library requiring “an extensive amount of land,” which is available on the west side of town.

Boedeker, aware of the controversy around the proposed library, said $52 million seems like a lot to spend on a library, the needs of which can be satisfied through technology today, she said. 

Crisp, who said he believes libraries are “wildly important for everybody,” thinks the current library could expand its services instead of building a new library. However, he pointed out that the age of the current library could mean a new one will be necessary anyway.

With the proposed library costing what it’s going to cost, one can expect either Boedeker or Crisp to analyze the benefit of spending those funds on it over other projects including traffic-improving road projects, which both candidates expressed concern about.

Both candidates are concerned about Burleson postponing road projects on Wicker Hill and Greenridge Drive to allow the city to fund the $42 million police-department building expansion ($5.6 million over budget).

Crisp said it’s unfair to citizens to postpone these kinds of projects to fund any under-budget project but believes the police department’s needs have to be addressed because it’s “wildly important” to the city.

Boedeker said she wants to see more data on the police department’s expansion needs and believes the city needs to spend money on addressing traffic.

Addressing traffic is a big concern for Crisp, who’s researching ways to use artificial intelligence to analyze traffic patterns. He said other cities have seen positive results from similar initiatives.

On all issues from the city’s traffic to building a new library, both Boedeker and Crisp seem eager to learn more and be involved in leading Burleson through its growth while remaining a small town.

“I just come with a mission, and I would love to keep Burleson as our small town,” Boedeker said. “But I’m afraid that’s kind of gone by the wayside, but I believe we can still keep our values.”

“I think you can still feel like you’re in like a small family town while at the same time making sure that we have the best available technology and the best available processes,” Crisp said.

The election will be held May 4 at the Ron Harmon Sub Courthouse. Voters can vote from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Election Day or vote early from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. from April 22 to April 26 and April 29 and 30 and from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. April 27.