Mike Burton (politician)

Michael (Mike) Burton (born August 1941, Alhambra, California, United States) was the American Executive Officer of Metro, a regional government in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area, from 1995-2003. He was a member of the original Metro Council (elected in 1978) and served until 1982. He also served in the Oregon House of Representatives from 1985–1995 and was Speaker Pro-tem in the 1991 session.

An elected regional government, Metro serves more than 1.5 million residents in Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties of Oregon, and the 25 cities in the Portland metropolitan area, Oregon portion (i.e., excluding Clark County, Washington).

In the 1950s, Portland area civic leaders saw an unfilled need to provide region-wide planning and coordination to manage pressing growth, infrastructure, and development issues that cross jurisdictional boundaries. They also saw a need to protect adjacent rural lands from urbanization and to provide particular services that are regional in nature.

In 1978, Metro was to fill that void. Its charter was broad: to provide planning, policy making, and services to preserve and enhance the region's quality of life. Its earliest responsibilities included urban growth boundary management, transportation planning, waste disposal planning and management, and operating the zoo – all of which remain in the Metro portfolio today. The voters revised the charter in 1995 with a structure that expanded the authority of the Executive Officer, added an elected auditor and reduced the size of the council from 13 to seven members.

Burton was elected to his first term as Executive Officer in 1995. He ran on a platform of maintaining a tight urban growth boundary and expansion of regional parks and facilities.

Metro is responsible for managing the Portland metropolitan region's urban growth boundary and is required by state law to have a 20-year supply of land for future residential development inside the boundary. Every five years, the Metro Council is required to conduct a review of the land supply and, if necessary, expand the boundary to meet that requirement. In its 2002 review, the Metro Council also asked technical staff to determine how much land would be required to meet a 20-year land supply for new jobs.

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