Ian Baltutis was as confident and poised as he had ever been during election season. But when the Elon University ’08 graduate heard he had won the Burlington mayoral election, one word came to his mind: disbelief.
“We knew that we had done tremendous work across the community and heard positive feedback from our volunteers standing at the polls,” Baltutis said. “But it was almost unreal seeing those numbers come in.”
Baltutis, 30, triumphed over Burlington City Councilman Jim Butler by 378 votes. The satisfying feeling of beating another politician was incredibly new to Baltutis. For the past three years, he failed to win an election, but by laboring vigorously, he garnered a large following of supporters —something he said aided his victory greatly.
“Something that really helped was the culmination of all the previous campaigns that we’ve run,” Baltutis said. “We had volunteers and community leaders behind us and donors and the whole support network across the community gunning for our victory.”
Baltutis’ mindset throughout the election was to reach as many voters as possible and personally engage with them. This entailed going door to door to speak with prospective voters and distribute yard signs.
The newly elected mayor hopes to continue this successful practice of open communication throughout his term and aspires to create jobs in Burlington and beyond through proactivity and personable collaboration.
“The biggest thing that we want to do is continue to be very visible and very active,” he said. “We want to continue what we’ve started and talk with teachers, business leaders and church leaders across the community and talk with them about having more involvement with the mayoral office. The future for our city is to create more jobs and that will rely heavily on my administration to work with people with an entrepreneurial mindset.”
Another aspect Baltutis hopes he can alter is the stereotype associated with youth. By defeating someone who was 20 years older than him, Baltutis hopes to influence younger individuals to chase their dreams despite inexperience.
“We really view this election as a pivotal moment to inspire people across our community,” he said “So often, people will tell us ‘You’re not old enough to be a leader.’ I wanted to break down that barrier and really make sure that folks are not turned off by that kind of comment."
"I’ve seen incredible students come out of Elon [University] and all of our high schools and if they want to start a business, I want them to know that they should start investing in that now and they will have support all throughout Burlington.”