The People of Burleson: Victoria Johnson
The People of Burleson: Victoria Johnson
An inside look at the Burleson City Council member who's dedicated to making sure that Burleson is successful
The People of Burleson is an article series by Brandon Crisp to interview, get to know and write articles on the everyday people who are from or currently live in Burleson.
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Burleson City Council member Victoria Johnson is wildly active within the Burleson community and is dedicated to making sure that the city and everyone around her is successful. She’s lived in Burleson most of her life after moving here at the age of five and only moving away temporarily for college.
On a normal day for Johnson when she’s not getting her kids ready for school or doing chores around the house, she spends a lot of time in meetings for both her place on the city council and her role in the North Central Texas Council of Governments, where she currently serves as the Vice President. She also volunteers in the art room and in physical education and participates in the Parent Teacher Organization at The Academy of Nola Dunn–where her two children attend school–and participates in the Rotary Club.
Brad Allard, a former Burleson High School teacher of Johnson and current host of the Mr. Allard’s Neighborhood podcast, says Johnson is a “wonderful” person who’s “devoted to her family and to this community.”
“[Johnson] has always been deeply interested in government and policy,” Allard said. “When she was a student in my classes at BHS, she was very much invested in learning about how to make government work and how to develop the best policies. She was, and is, a very bright and mature young woman. Plus she’s devoted to her family and to this community.”
This community is what Johnson loves most about Burleson.
“Even though we’re growing incredibly fast, you generally still know people and you can still go out and get recognized,” Johnson said. “The city is great for the sense of community and feeling together.”
Since moving to Burleson in the early 1990s, Johnson has seen the city change in a lot of different ways.
“Since I moved here, we now have a variety of activities, shopping, places to eat, and more. When I was a kid, Burleson had very little,” Johnson said. She added that when she was growing up in Burleson there was “Albertsons, K-Mart and then nothing.” She fondly remembers it being a massive deal resulting in loads of traffic and eventual police intervention when the Chili’s opened.
Johnson sees the impact that a lot of the growth is having on Burleson. She said she’d advise Burleson’s newcomers to take advantage of community events and activities like the Trash Bash, Boo Bash, Farmers Market and any city committees. She added that “if you get involved, you’ll feel so much closer to the community and maybe find a reason to love it as much as I do.”
Johnson looks forward every year to events such as the Hispanic Heritage Festival, the Juneteenth Festival and Founder’s Day and is thrilled with how much they all have grown and continue to grow. Her favorite places in Burleson are the Mayor Vera Calvin Plaza, Bailey Lake and Oak Valley North Park–adding that she loves “pretty much all of our parks.” If she could only choose one place in Burleson to eat at for the rest of her life, she’d struggle to pick one and choose Fresco’s and Mojos.
One aspect of Johnson’s involvement in the community that she’s proud of is her role on the North Central Texas Council of Governments, which was a large part of her re-election campaign in May.
The NCTCOG is the metropolitan planning organization that distributes federally-funded transportation dollars to north Texas municipalities.
Johnson was seemingly set on joining the COG before ever even being elected to city council because she learned during her time working in the U.S. House of Representatives that “they are some of the best of the best in metropolitan planning organizations.”
Her position on the NCTCOG allows Johnson to see and vote on things coming to Burleson in the future. She said she’s excited for the new pickleball place off of Hidden Creek and for the new Craftmasters campus to open up and bring opportunities to Burleson.
“My focus is on bringing more good paying jobs to Burleson,” Johnson said.
Johnson will conduct her first meeting of the NCTCOG in September, which she is excited but nervous about.
Something not many people know about Johnson is that she’s always wanted to be a pilot.
“I’ve dreamed of it since I was a kid,” Johsnon said of being a pilot. She noted that she’s taken several lessons but hopes to finish when her kids are older. In true fashion of her deep commitment to the community, she added that anything that may pull her away from either being a mom or a council member–in that order–“must feed back into the community or my children.”
Growing up Johnson had working parents and decided early on that she wanted to be a parent who spent as much time with her kids as possible. Because of this, she spends a good amount of her time that’s not already dedicated to community matters volunteering in everything that she can at the elementary school.
Victoria lives for her family and doesn’t necessarily want to be a stay-at-home-mom but says that when she would work she would miss her babies “tremendously.”
Victoria Johnson is a friendly and very dedicated civil servant in the city of Burleson.
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