Mike Van Gorder (Burbank City Council At-large, California, candidate 2024)
Mike Van Gorder ran for election to the Burbank City Council At-large in California. He was on the ballot in the general election on November 5, 2024.[source]
Van Gorder completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.
[1]Biography
Mike Van Gorder provided the following biographical information via Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey on October 19, 2024:
- Birth date: June 4, 1985
- Birth place: Santa Ana, California
- High school: Orange County High School of the Arts
- Bachelor's: Chapman University, 2007
- Graduate: University of California - Los Angeles, 2021
- Gender: Male
- Religion: Jewish
- Profession: Policy Analyst
- Incumbent officeholder: No
- Campaign slogan: Protect our Progress
- Campaign website
- Campaign endorsements
- Campaign Facebook
- Campaign Instagram
- Campaign YouTube
- Campaign YouTube video
Elections
General election
General election for Burbank City Council At-large (2 seats)
The following candidates ran in the general election for Burbank City Council At-large on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | ||
 | Konstantine Anthony (Nonpartisan)  | |
| Patricia Suarez Nacion (Nonpartisan) | ||
| John Parr (Nonpartisan) | ||
| Emma Pineiro (Nonpartisan) | ||
| Eddy Polon (Nonpartisan) | ||
| Chris Rizzotti (Nonpartisan) | ||
 | Hovanes Tonoyan (Nonpartisan) | |
| Mike Van Gorder (Nonpartisan) | ||
| Judie Wilke (Nonpartisan) | ||
| ||||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Election results
Endorsements
To view Van Gorder's endorsements as published by their campaign, click here. Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Van Gorder in this election.
Campaign themes
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Mike Van Gorder completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Van Gorder's responses.
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- 1) Housing Opportunity and Affordability – average home prices in Burbank are $1.2 million, and average rents for a two bedroom are $2,544. I spoke to a homeowner that was leaving the City who sold her home to someone that will pay $10,000 a month in a mortgage. This is objectively impossible for working families. Councils previous to 2020 never took the housing crisis seriously, and as a result we have one housing unit for every six jobs in this City. Tenant protections need to happen now to preserve our community – and once Prop 33 passes, we’ll need to create an ordinance to protect the renters of single-family homes. We will seriously produce missing middle housing by incentivizing smaller lot development and mom and pop developers.
- 2) Working class protections and better wages – this City’s workforce is densely unionized, and the City government has begun to publicly align with the unions to get better wages. I want to see a Project Labor Agreement put into place Day One to announce to the region that Burbank is going to require good wages, safe conditions, and real investment in local labor. Not only will this lift up our community and keep Burbank dollars within the City borders but we’ll get jobs done right the first time. Beyond construction, I want to see minimum wage increases across the board (with a ramp up for larger workforces) and Safe Staffing ordinances for skilled workplaces where understaffing is a safety risk and damaging to the delivery of service.
- 3) Climate change – I've door knocked in 109 degree weather. The Burbank Green New Deal is an excellent platform with a goal that is worth accelerating, as climate science agrees that massive reductions must be achieved by 2030, not 2040. We have a lot of necessary development to achieve in our city, and that development must be both worker-friendly and climate-friendly. We need to disrupt the heat island effect and make our streets liveable through greenery, solar panel shade structures, and good planning.
My wife was seven months pregnant when we bought our house. We're the only people we know of our age that bought without help from our families. Six days after moving in she got laid off - no more maternity leave, no more making ends meet, just a jump from a $1,400 rental to a $5,000 mortgage. After supplemental tax assessments, we're spending $5,300, half our income. We live in what used to be called a "starter home".
It’s remarkable how often long-term planning decisions are routinely put in the hands of people who know nothing about creating cities and the built environment, or how starving one area of resources creates problems everywhere.
Local politics used to be, and too often still is, a hobby for retirees, lawyers, and used-car impresarios like Ben Gezzara in Road House (the unbeatable Swayze original).
California Working Families Party
Teamsters Joint Council 42
DSA - LA
East Area Progressive Democrats
Ground Game LA
Democrats for the Protection of Animals
California Democratic Renters Council
LA County Public Defenders Union
IUPAT
California Federation of Interpreters Local 39000
Pilipino American Los Angeles Democrats
Democrats for Neighborhood Action
Burbank Councilmember Konstantine Anthony
Burbank School Board President Dr. Emily Weisberg
Glendale Councilmember Ardy Kassakhian
Glendale Councilmember Dan Brotman
Culver City Councilmember Daniel Lee
Pasadena School Board Member Tina Wu Fredericks
Holocaust Speaker David Meyerhof
Author Cory Doctorow
Consumer Protection Attorney Marissa Roy
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2024 Elections
External links
Footnotes
