Election 2025: Mike Espejo for Select Board

This article is a part of the Burlington Buzz Election 2025 Series, in which we profile each candidate for election. This year's election is on April 5, 2025, and our mission is to make it easy for all registered voters to vote by ensuring the community has access to information about the candidates and issues on the ballot. ELECTION CORNER

Mike Espejo is running for another term on the Select Board in Burlington, where he’s lived most of his life. Espejo is running alongside Nick Priest for two seats on the town’s Executive Board, and we had the opportunity to chat with him about his experience so far I town government and his hopes for a new term.

Before joining the Select Board, Espejo was a Planning Board member from 2019 to 2022 and a member of the Zoning Board of Appeals from 2018 to 2019. He’s glad he ran for Select Board in 2022 and excited for another three years. “It's been one of the greatest things I've ever done in my life. It's such an honor to represent the town which has been so good to me,” he said.

The division in the country motivated Espejo to run for local office and, while he is disappointed that the nation is still so divided politically, he is proud to be involved in municipal government, where “there's no letter at the end of our name. There's no D, no R. We're all party Burlington. We all want good schools, we all want clean water, we all want roads without potholes. It doesn't matter how you sit politically in the grand scheme. We all kind of align on most things on this level. Where we disagree is how to get there.”

Espejo said that after completing a full term, he’s got sufficient experience on the Board to know the ins and outs and how he can work most effectively to represent the residents and move the town forward.

Being on the Board during the time when water supply and contamination issues were resolved and the approval for a new police station was accomplished was are two of Espejo’s most notable points of pride, he said. He works as the liaison to the Police Department and is glad the public safety officers are finally getting something they’ve needed for a long time. The work to install PFAS filters and the connection of the town to the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority (MWRA), which is partially finished and will be completed this year, have brought us, he said, from “worst to first” with respect to the town’s water supply and quality.

Espejo is also liaison to the Economic Development Department and says the highlight of this year in Burlington is the passage of the Mall Road Mixed-Use Zoning by Town Meeting in January. “I think that is going to be something that we'll look back on in 30 years and just be like wow, that was really great planning,” he said. This new zoning hopes to create opportunity for the commercial area around Mall Road to move into the new era accelerated by the pandemic.

The current state of the town’s commercial area is an area of concern for Espejo. With a 20% vacancy rate and the recent announcement that Oracle plans to lease out hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space, Espejo says it’s imperative that Burlington quickly find new ways of interacting with the commercial sector that allow the town to maintain the low residential taxes and access to amenities and services residents enjoy. He’s also concerned about the impact of upcoming building projects on property taxes, a major point of contention in many conversations around town. He wishes the town in the past had been more proactive in spreading out these projects and prioritizing the police station and high school sooner. In the future he’d like to see a capital planning summit each year where the town’s boards and committees get together and form a better roadmap for managing capital projects proactively.

Espejo is also eager to get started with the government review that will begin soon. It’s time to take a deep look and be sure the town is running efficiently and effectively, he said, saying he’d like to consider things like the creation of a charter and whether the town is better suited to have a Town Manager rather than a Town Administrator.

The work of the Select Board, as Espejo sees it, is to be the “face of town government” as well as to keep tax bills as low as possible. “We don't have to look out for our own interests but the general interests of the entire town and … make the town the best place for everybody.”

Mike Espejo, along with Nick Priest, is running unopposed to retain his seat as a Select Board member. Learn more about the Select Board and visit our Election Corner for more information about the April 5, 2025, Burlington Town Election.